THE COTTON INDUSTRY.

Waikato Times, Volume 96, Issue 15361, 9 October 1923, Page 8

THE COTTON INDUSTRY.

OUTLOOK NOT PROMISING. MARKETING NEW ZEALAND GOODS. MEAT CHAIRMAN'S IMPRESSIONS. By Telegraph.—Special to Times. WELLINGTON, Monday. " While London as a commercial centre has every appearance of being prosperous, the industrial outlook is almost as poor as during the period of the slump," says the chairman of the Patea Meat Freezing Company, who returned by the Tainui last night. Having revisited Great Britain after a lapse of two years, Mr Chas. D. Dickie, chairman of the Patea Freezing Company, who was also member of the Taranaki Soldier Settlement Inquiry Board, gave some interesting impressions of his recent tour of Great Britain and Canada to your representative to-day. Comparing the condition of Britain to-day with what he experienced when he was Home two years ago, Mr Dickie was not in an optimistic mood. There was, ho said, great distress in the industrial centres, particularly on the Clyde, where the shipbuilding industry was almost paralysed. A large number of people were migrating from Glasgow for America and the British Dominions overseas. Although the aggregate number of unemployed had fallen to a million and a-quarter, yet the winter was coming on, and he felt that it would be difficult to keep the figure even as low as that. German goods were, he said, being dumped into Britain at a great rate. The prices were ridiculously low. The chief items of German imports were cutlery, hardware, and china. One could buy pocket knives in the London shops for Id to 6d. Binoculars with the best type of lens were being sold at such low prices as to make people think the lenses were not genuine. The lenses had been sent tj England, where the binoculars were being remade and sold as English.

" The same systems of marketing New Zealand produce are in vogue as when I was Home before," he said. " They are still more or less haphazard. It seems to me that the best means to stabilise the market, as far as our products are concerned would be for the Imperial Government to adopt the same policy as they do in regard to meat; that is to insist on being advised of the amount of butter and cheese in store. At present they have only a record of what is landed, not of;what is stored or goes into consumption. If they had those statistics it would prevent the periodic gluts in the market. To my mind it would be better controlled at this end, where storage is cheaper. " The outlook for mutton and lamb is quite sound, but the beef market depends entirely on the supplies from the Argentine. A lot of New Zealand beef was sent to Glasgow while I was in Scotland, but the impression I gained there was that the people did not have the money to buy' It. " Our dairy products continue to be well spoken of everywhere. A goodly quantity of our butter is used for blending, and sold as blended butter. " Everywhere I went I heard people saying ihey were anxious to" come to New Zeatond. They wero of a very fine rural type, .such as the immigrants who travelled with us on the Tainui. I am wondering whether the best means are being employed to secure them. I have learned of the agreement between the British and New Zealand Governments, but I still think a good deal of proper organising requires to be done, especially from this end."

Mr Dickie also visited Canada, where he found the farmers were not by any means prosperous. The present harvest promised well, but even allowing for it he did not think the farmers would fully weather the difficulties they had met through the past bad season. The economic condition of the farmers in the Far West of Canada was very • low. It was not ,in his opinion, a good place for immigrants. Many of the people that went there did so for the purpose of making a few pounds and getting back home again. It was refreshing to consider the condition of the New Zealand farmer by comparison. New Zealand butter and cheese were in high favour through Canada. Asked what impression he gathered at Home in regard to the Dairy Control Act, Mr Dickie said he had not seen the new Act, and was interested to learn that the poll was being taken. He said that the men he had met in Tooley Street were not by any means antagonistic to it, but were very favourably disposed towards the profitable marketing of New Zealand dairy produce in Great Britain. They expected that for a long time to come they would be marketed through the old channels. He expressed the opinion, however, that in the selection of the hoard if the suppliers voted for the Act to come into operation, it would be very wise to choose men that had a close knowledge of the conditions under which dairy products were put on the market at Home.