COST OF WOOLLEN GOODS

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16037, 30 January 1920, Page 9

COST OF WOOLLEN GOODS

NEW ZEALAND MILLS,

“PAIR TRADING PROFIT.”

The question of profiteering in manufactured woollens was discussed on Saturday bv Mr J,, A. I rostick, chairman of the Kaiapoi Woollen Company. He said a strict and impartial investigation, world show that, so tar as the Dominion mills were concerned, they were making no more than a fair trading profit. Mr Frostlck said that representatives of the woollen mills throughout the Dominion met in conference last December, and it was decided, for the benefit of the Board of Trade, to extract a series of analyses of the actual costs of manufacturing all classes of goods made in New Zealand mills. This work was not yet completed, as it necessitated a great deal of investigation on the part of all the mill managements. The executive of the Woollen Mill Owners' Association had asked for the co-opera-tion of all the members of the association, so that the Board of Trade could determine if the prices charged for manufactured goods were fair and reasonable.

Asked to comment on the allegation, that the clothes made from New Zealand suitings cost as much as those made from imported cloths, Mr Frostick remarked that if the allegation was true it was a point for the tailor bo explain. He stated definitely that New Zealand-made cloth was sold by the New Zealand mills' for “shillings a yard” cheaper than the imported article •of the same kind and quality. He indicated that more than one “middleman 5 ’ might handle mill productions such as suitings before they got to the tailor, and the inference was that a tailor who did not deal with a mill direct might have to pay more than the prices charged hy the mill itself.