Western Star AND WALLACE COUNTY GAZETTE. PUBLISHED Every Tuesday and Friday. TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 1920. MANUFACTURERS’ PROFITS.

Western Star, 16 March 1920, Page 2

Western Star AND WALLACE COUNTY GAZETTE. PUBLISHED Every Tuesday and Friday. TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 1920. MANUFACTURERS’ PROFITS.

“If I were to stand in my small yard holding out a blanket, and money was to rain down from the heavens above, I could not gather it in faster than I am doing now.” Such was the statement mad© by a woollen manufacturer, and wo suppose anyone in Yorkshire at the head of a wool and textile business could say the same thing. Enormous fortunes are being miade because' the world wants cloth, and Bradford, Huddersfield, and the rest of the woollen towns cannot meet the demand. Discussing the position with a. correspondent of a London paper, a manufacturer assured him that he was afraid to open his morning post because of the orders it contained, and, he added, that most of. them had to bo disappointed. He only accepted the orders that showed the most profit, and then it would take a, long time to complete them. As a matter of fact cloth manufacturers are now getting instead of half-pence shillings in profit. One particular clothmaker obtains two' shillings ai yard profit on cloth which prior to the war yielded him a half-penny a yard only. The British Government showed how

money could be made out of the Australasian wool clip, and the manufacturers were not slow to imitate the example. Only the district surveyors of taxes know how many new millionaires have been born in West Yorkshire during the war and the peacetime trade boom, and they, unfortunately, must nob tell. While Bradford is tho capital of the wool industry, Huddersfield is the headquarters of cloth manufacturing. The finest cloth in all the world comes from, this Yorkshire town, with its innumerable factories ringed about by the Yorkshire mills. During the war Huddersfield miade khaki—the best whipcords for officers’ tunics —andl did extremely well out of it. Day and night the factories were kept going in Huddersfield and tho adjacent Colne Valley, where the poorer qualities of khaki were manufactured. Huddersfield raked in millions then, and is dicing tho same now, with a few l more millions added for luck. Here are soime of the Huddersfield prices, ,so that one can estimate Huddersfield’s prosperity:—A good class botany serge, weighing 16oz. to the yard, cost, prewar, 4s 6d a yard; now it is 23s 6d—nearly Is 6d an ounce. A better quality serge was 6s 6d a yard; now it is 30s. An all-wool Cheviot fetched 2s 6d a yard; now it is 11s 6d. A Colne ' Valley tweed which was 2s a yard before the war is now 8s 6d. No wonder suits are dear, and there is not any immediate prospect of cheaper cloth.