THE WOOL TRADE

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 120, 17 November 1932, Page 22

THE WOOL TRADE

YORKSHIRE'S ENTERPRISE

(From "Th» Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 7th October. "A striking example of the readiness of British textile manufacturers to respond to the challenge of competition from abroad is seen in Yorkshire's reaction to the recent influx of wool cloth from Italy (says the "Daily Telegraph"). Some five months • ago an Italian firm, one of the largest textile manufacturers in the world, began to make their waste into an attractive-looking wool cloth, which was sent to this country and sold at the wholesale price of Is lid a yard. The cloth was necessarily of a very poor quality, but it sold well, and for some time the Italian firm had things all their own way. Then Yorkshire awoke to the situation.

"To-day," the chief wool buyer in a large firm of importers said in an interview, "you can buy the same cloth at the same price from Yorkshire. I understand that neither the English nor the Italian manufacturer makes much, if anything, out of; the stuff sold at such a price, even though the quality is low grade. But both find it is better than letting looms stand idle, because it helps with the overhead costs of the whole factory. "This is only one instance of what is constantly happening," the buyer went on. "The only cloth imports that have come in since the Import Duties Act are novelty lines. In this particular case the novelty was the amazing cheapness, but in other cases the novelty lies in pattern or texture or some such thing. But just as Yorkshire has faced up to the cheap Italian cloth, so I have always found that in every case Yorkshire responds by producing the identical thing that has come from abroad.

"These novelty imports are therefore good for everyone concerned. . The foreigner knows that if he wants to get into the English market he must produce something that Yorkshire does not. Yorkshire then sets to work and produces the same thing, usually at a better price."-