COTTON INDUSTRY’S FUTURE

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 5, 1 October 1943, Page 5

COTTON INDUSTRY’S FUTURE

LONDON, August 15. A warning against a false feeling of security in the post-war planning of the cotton industry was uttered by Mr. E. A. Carpenter, chairman of the Cotton and Rayon Merchants’ Association, at the annual meeting of the association at Manchester. “This feeling is tha; the industry will have the markets of the world at its feet, and that they will be prepared to accept whatever the _ industry offers at whatever price,” he said. Hie corollaries of such thinking are fixed prices and an excessive zeal foe standardization. These reflect a shortsightedness as bad as that which characterized the industry’s vision alter the last war, and are anathema _to enterprice and initiative, which will be more essential than ever to the industry in the future.” There should be Government action to secure bv international agreement access to and distribution of the raw materials of lhe world with reasonable stability ot price and fair entry to markets, Mr. Carpenter continued. _ Employers and labour in the production section of the industry should instal machinery and meth ods best fitted to produce the r *S Jt goods at the right price. There could be no permanent place for those who were content to take a “rake off’ from, th? industry’ in good times and leave it to others to weather the less favourable and stormy times. It was a tragedy in the davs before the war that the cry in the industry was that there were too many spindles, looms and merchants, and that a louder voice did. not cry “there are too few customers.”