COTTON GOODS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 62, Issue 4428, 21 May 1941, Page 7

COTTON GOODS

LANCASHIRE TACKLES A NEW WAR TASK. Lancashire is now steadily fulfilling the cotton orders which have been coming in from the Dutch East Indies following the visit to Java of the representative of the Cotton Board. When the Nazis seized the cotton mills of Holland, it was evident that the people of the Dutch East Indies would have to make new arrangements to meet their clothing requirements. Quite apart from a huge trade in colour-woven sarongs, Holland used to send to Java and the Outer Islands something like 175,000,000 yards of cotton piece-goods every year, or as much as the large trade which Lancashire already does with Australia and New Zealand. Native production could not cope with it; nor, for several reasons, could the existing trade with Japan be extended. Lancashire has therefore stepped into the breach. Prices have been cut to the bone. Backed by the British Government, purchases are being arranged of large quantities of native produce, and exports to the Dutch East Indies are willingly being preferred to the demands of Britain’s home trade. In Lancashire there is virtually no damage to production and losses at sea are comparatively small. Lancashire is, therefore, doing all that can be done to fill the gap.