FOUR MILLION DEAL IN LINEN

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 284, 27 August 1919, Page 8

FOUR MILLION DEAL IN LINEN

$ r ' 30 MILLION YARDS SOLD TO ONE MAN. Tor £1,(100,000 the complete stock of linen held by the Aircraft Equipment Section of the Government Disposal Beard, about 30,000,0110 yards, has been Bckl lo Mr. Leonard J. Martin, 124 The MinoL'ies, ILoudon, JJ.C, uiho paid a cheque on account 'and signed the contract. The linen is of 18 varieties, and the width varies from 25 to 72 inches. The price works ont at 2s. Bd. a yard for the lot. Made in the first place for covering aeroplane wings, this great bulk of linen represents roughly three-fifths of a year'* output of the Belfast looms. Tho finer guides are suitable for infants' frocks, handkerchiefs, and blguses; other grades for summer skirts or men's overalls, sheets, and tablecloths; and the- coarser grades for awnings, chair-covers, and the like. Public interest had been keen in the problem of the disposal of this Government .linen, and the announcement of the big deal came as a surprise to many sniaiUer buyers who had wished to take advantage of the Government's largely advertised olter to sell the linen to the public generally. Mr. Martin is 37, and came from Cornwall to London when IS with £200, with ivhich he started a motor-boat engine workshop a't Lewisham. Later he bought up motoi'-omnibuse-i from derelict comIHinies and built up a new trade, and then'began importing American farming machinery. "1 am prepared to justify this transaction beforo any assembly of business mull," was Mr. Kelhuray's answer in the .House of Commons to the criticism of tho deal. They had a surplus ot' 43,000,000 I yards of linen winch had coat Is. 3d. to ■4s. per yard, and they tried getting it back into the hands of tho trade. But the Bttfasl nianufciuturcre would not go beyond is. a yard. Subsequently they proposed to join with the Government I in selling it on a profit-sharing basis, j Tho .Government had now sold the linen I fov 2s. Bil. o. yard, and they had saved for themselves 4)300,000 which would otherwise havo gone into the pockets of j the liiH'ii manufacturers. | . Before this the Jfinistry had tried unsuccessfully to dispose of the linen to the ! trade. "Lord Inverforth curried samples of it in his pockets to retailors in Lpn- j <lon and trial to eeU it. I should think | this is the first occasion on which a Minister of the Crown and a Peer has acted as a commercial traveller on behalf of a Government Department."