RICHEST TOWN.

Hokitika Guardian, 28 February 1920, Page 4

RICHEST TOWN.

FORTUNES FROM RAGS. HUDDERSFIELD, Dec. 2. ‘ Wie could do with six Hudderfields to cope with the demand for worsteds l and woollens.” That sentence of a manufacturer’s statement to me to-day. sums up the situation. No demand approaching the one to-day has been known in the history of the trade, while the output, owing to reduced hours, has decreased. Laieashire’s' prosperity finds a parallel here. But in Huddersfield fortunes are being made quietly and without ostentation. Never would it occur,to the visitor that this is one of the wealthiest, if not the wealthiest, towns in the country. But it is. Throughout the. war 90 per cent, of the mills were producing khaki. B.v ; the armistice many, firms had orders on, their books two years old, and soon were “booked up” to the end of 1920. Today there is hardly a firm which will accept a new customer, several firms have closed down the department for the re-

tieipt of orders, and such few firms asi can quote a time for delivery of an order placed now are naming next July, August, and later months. I Mr E. R. Benson, president of the Chamber of Commerce, told me that his own firm have not accepted any orders since July last. “We are able to give our customers only a small proportion of their requirements,” he said. “If we could have a mill magically put down here, financed and staffed, and six times as big as the present one, we could keep it going with orders. HUGE JUMP IN' PRICES. “Tops that before the war cost 2s 6d to 2s 9d, and which, when Government control was withdrawn early this year, were (is sd, now cost 13s Gd. Manufacturers’ prices of worsted cloths are four to five times pre-war prices. Cloth that 5s to 7s. a yard is now . 25s to 30s, “Profits arc not up. in, proportion. Some firms make no more profit, some

make twice as much, some perhaps more than that. I should put the continuance of the “ boom ” at some years. Four or five years, I gathered in other quarters, is a moderate estimate. Operatives share in the prosperity. Those who earned 30s in 1914 now earn 67s 6d. Girl menders of 21, T am told, sometimes earn £4 a week. “Within the last month or so,” an official informed me, “ the textile workers have received a2B per cent advance.” The general level of prosperity may be gauged by the fact that Huddersfield has invested £'20,000,000 in War Bonds, Savings Certificates, and Victory Loan —£l9o per head of the population.

Women labour is at a premium. Hundreds of looms—in • some firms 20 percent—are stopped through the short, age of women. “To import labour is impossible,” said-a manufacturer. “be cause there is nowhere for them to live.”

Undoubtedly there are men in Hudders field who have risen from the bottom and made fortunes, hut they talk little about it.

I am told of a few dealers of the working-<slass type who foresaw the enormous demand for rags and straightaway began early in the war to collect and store them. One man got an old disused church packed withthem, and out of their sale made a small fortune.

The workpeople, they tell me, arc’ the best clad in the world. Here the world’s finest worsteds are made, and the operatives, scorning the poor qualities, buy the best cloth from their own firms and have it made up. And a suit you and I pay £lO 10s for they get for £6 or £7.