WOOLLEN TRADE.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VII, Issue 2030, 17 August 1920, Page 11

WOOLLEN TRADE.

ALLEGATION OF HIGH PRICES. MANUFACTURER'S REPLY. rrrx.i Association. WELLINGTON, August 17. Speaking at the annual meeting of the Wellington Woollen Co., Ltd., to-day, the chairman (Mr W. H. P. Barber) referred to the increase in the price of goods. He asserted that the woollen manufacturers of New Zealand were conducting operations strictly on the lines of fair trading, and that they were not taking advantage of the situation. That selling prices, the world over, were'so high was a calamity, hut it was a fact that New Zealand mill prices, taken on an ultra-conservative basis, were at least one half any of those for similar imported articles. "Grey woollen" textile, adulterated or not, and no matter where it was produced, if it were on sale at retail shops, seemed to be classed by the public as "Colonial," with unfair results to the woollen companies. Referring to a statement that the farmer received for his wool lod per pound, and that one yard of cloth contained lib of wool, while suits of clothes were sold at £lB, Mr Barber said that it might be that some qualities of wool did not realise more than 1/3 per lb, and that some tailors were selling suits at £lB, but it was the deliberate coupling of the two assertions, inferentially, thus accusing the 'mill-owners of profiteering, to which he took strong exception. No cloth ever left the Petone mills at a price which would justify such a retail charge for a suit. As to imported tweeds, that was another matter, which could be best answered by the tailors concerned. Mr Barher added that his personal opinion was that, excluding a financial panic—which would,be a cure, but, unfortunately, worse than the disease—the only thing that would reduce prices was production. In the wool-combing industry ; in France, normal conditions were almost entirely restored, as the result of working 24 hours per day, in three shifts. If other branches of trade did the same—as, no doubt, they would—it would not be long before competition would make itself felt. The tendency in New Zealand was for a shorter working week, and, even now, the cutting out of Saturday mornings was being used by some employers to attract workers, regardless of other consequences, such as the limitation of output. The (heat War had started rising prices, but he held that labour, generally, had the power to say when high prices should come dowii, not by limiting output and creating obstacles, but by allowing that •machinery and capital might be employed to the "fullest capacity, so that, within a short period, without any reduction of wages, production would ensure competition, and thus bring us back to normal conditions, when the law of supply and demand would settle those economic problems of inflation, whether or not they were due to the superabundance of paper currency.