PRICE OF TWEEDS.

Western Star, 26 March 1920, Page 2

PRICE OF TWEEDS.

GOVERNMENT REAPING- BENEFIT. / THROUGH THE: CUSTOMS. ■ A correspondent writes to- the Oamaru Mail a® follows: —Nearly the whole, of the- tweeds and worsteds used by the tailors .have now to be imported, , mainly because of cut put from l the woollen mills being hypothecated for the ready-made trade, and the duty on woollens is 20 per cent, ad valorem. Now that the cost at Home is about three times what it was in pre-war days, it follows that the Government gets about three times the amount of duty that it did formerly, and so by the time that the goods pass through the importers’ and the retailers’ hands the cost is still further increased. Strange be say, wo do not hear a word/ of this ffrom Parliamentarians. Now, if the Government is anxious to reduce the cost of, suits they could make a. good deal of difference- by reducing the duty by, say, 10 per cent., amt that would carry with it the reduction by the importer and rptailor to the extent of their profits on the smaller amount of turnover. Does the public recognise- the acute shortage in woollen suitings throughout the Dominion? One of our local tailors paid a visit to Dunedin recently with the object of purchasing some material, if available, and, after diligently searching every woollen warehouse lie returned with only two suit lengths as the result of his endeavour. The nnjorlty of the warehouses throughout the Dominion have nob oven a> single yard of suitings, and the general method of distribution, when they receive any, is to cut them up into- suit lengths and send them on pro 1 rata to their customers, the retailer halving practically no say in what he gets as is pattern or quality, a.nd price eel-' dom enters into the matter at all.