ENGLISH INDUSTRY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17126, 5 December 1929, Page 13

ENGLISH INDUSTRY

1 TOO CONSERVATIVE t ' - - _ PREFERENCE SHOULD START AT HOME ■ MELBOURNE, Nov. 19. That Great Britain was making tho fatal mistake of striving for inequitable trade preferences from the Dominions, while neglecting to extend her preferences to her own home market, was the opinion'expressed by Dir. George G. Foletta, general manager of Prestige Hosiery, Ltd., Brunswick, on his return from abroad yesterday. I Free-trade within the Empire, lie said, I I had become in the United Kingdom the : catchword of a number of people who ! did, not bother to think what such a policy would imply. England could not expect to lower Australian standards; ! she must raise her standards to ours. What was needed was trade reciprocity. 1 ( If we were going to give England i preferences, she must manufacture the things we required, and give adequate preference to our goods in return. Preference was a policy that should start at home. Englishmen as purchasers were showing a fatal preference for commodities manufactured abroad. In, certain large London chemist shops ihe had found it impossible to purchase i English shaving cream, although seven or eight brands of American had been kept in stock. He had experienced a similar difficulty in buying other English articles. Antiquated or conservative methods of ; manufacture were, said Mr. Foletta, losing England valuable markets to , America and the Continent. Mercerised cotton, from its inception until about ten years ago, was, he said, almost - a , monopoly trade of Great Britain. America, through extensive scientific research, had now obtained a 100 per cent, mercerisation by modern methods, while the Englishman, using the ancient dipping baths patented by his greatgrandfather, was now obtaining a 90 per cent, mercerisation. Ho had been j informed by a high official connected with the industry that the English manufacturers were losing £30,000,000 a year in this industry alone by their , failure to install modern machinery. Even English hosiery had 50 per cent, of American mercerised cotton in it. They had lost their foreign markets, and were now rapidly losing their own. ' .Speaking of the effect of artificial silk , on the cotton and wool industry, Mr. Foletta said that artificial silk had reached, the zenith of its popularity, but .was still being greatly used in Germany . in the manufacture of cheap underwear. In referring to the, marketing, of Australian goods abroad, lie said that wo had a lot to learn in the matter of grading and packing. Retail fruit vendors • had informed lurri that they were losing money on the sale of Australian apples. ■ Mr, Foletta suggested that we were, making a great mistake in marketing Australian wines at a low price abroad, European connoisseurs had,, lie said, told him that the Australian wine lacked nothing in quality, and if expensively bottled would capture the profitable European markets, t “ '