JAPANESE GOODS

Stratford Evening Post, Volume II, Issue 241, 12 May 1933, Page 3

JAPANESE GOODS

Menace is Very Real DRAPERY TRADE ASTIR The New Zealand Drapers', Clothiers', and Boot Retailers' Federation Journal is most apprehensive of Japanese competition with British goods in the New Zealand market. "Not only is New Zealand threatened with a flood of ch".<ip Eastern cotton and art. silk products," states the trade organ, "but also woollen, mixture and imitation woollen products are being dumped here, and the sale of betterclass products is heing prejudiced hy these goods being displayed in chain stores at cut prices. Footwear is also threatened by the latest Japanese product, in which a rubber composition for soles, heels, and upper is used in imitation of ordinary brown and black leather. These rubber shoes when new are difficult to tell from brown or black calf, and they are sold in England as low as 3s Gd a pair."

Attention is drawn to the slight j prospect of reciprocal trade with! Eastern countries, and it is stated j that beyond n minor market for raw j wool but little Of our produce can | find a market there in return for cheap-labour goods. "The only open j and worth-while market for 90 per i cent, of the export, trade on which \ ou'r country depends for its natural I income is the Mother Country. Under the Ottawa Agreement wc now have our only sheltered market, where our products are given preference j over foreign goods, but we cannot ex-1 pect Britain to buy our exports at | profitable prices, while her workers') are being thrown idle, or their living | standards worsened by unfair compe-! tition with the lowest-paid labour in i the world. j "The menace is very real and very alarming," states the journal, audi adds: "With England and the other overseas Dominions taking action to cope with this danger, Nov/ Zealand | cannot afford to remain an open 1 dumping ground for the class of goods } we have described, and we look i'or combined action by our federation in unity with the representatives feplj British manufacturers, and the New Zealand Manufacturers' Federation, to impress on the new tariff tribunal about, to be set up the necessity for effective action in meeting this peril."s