"DEVASTATED” ENGLAND

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 96, 28 August 1923, Page 5

"DEVASTATED” ENGLAND

REMARKABLE TRADE POSITION

RESULT OF THE WAR.

Press Association—Copyright, Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. (Received 11.16 a.m.) London, August 27.

Tlio Daily Express, in a special Bradford article headed “Devastated England, Bradford invaded by Roubaix,” writes:

I have just seen a Bradford house with its shelves and rooms packed full with rolls of French textiles. Ono of tho most patriotic English merchants tells me hq was forced against his will to buy French cloths. The travellers for the local houses are all returning, declaring it is useless to show samples. No retailor will look at Bradford cloths, seeing that tho French manufacturers owing to tho exchange can undercut us hy a. shilling and even more per yard. Bradford is becoming one of our devastated areas. Australian buyers for the first time in history are clamouring for products from Roubaix and Venders. Bradford is perhaps more supreme fn rts art than any manufacturing centre of any country. Bradford’s quality has stood for a century, and is still unchallenged. Those wanting the best cloth, worth seven shillings yard, must still go to Bradford, but for all the cheaper lines, particularly women’s wear, Yorkshire manufacturers are quite out of the picture. Tho Roubaix workers are throwing Bradford workers out of employment as surely as if they were devastating the city with howitzers. Tho reason the home market is failing is pen fectly clear. Our heavily-taxed people demand cheap wares. Continental manufacturers with low taxation concealed under Government subsidies, above all the low exchange having through tariffs complete control of their homo markets, from which they pay all the overhead charges, can descend upon the British market like a wolf on the fold. Many British towns adopted French towns and villages in order to Help to made good the devastations caused by tho war. Now in another sense, the French towns have adopted tho British towns’ trade.