UNDERCUTTING THE FOREIGNER

Hokitika Guardian, 8 December 1930, Page 2

UNDERCUTTING THE FOREIGNER

Britain is boating the foreign dumpers at their own game. Special investigations made by the “Sunday Express’’ siiow that the British workman has gone into the market hitherto exclusively held by his Continental rivals. The story of this new industrial triumph is told below. Two years after the war, foreign manufacturers of cheap merchandise began flooding the home market with their products at prices which created a great demand. Trade was captured at an alarming rate, British men and women were thrown out of work; many factories had practically to close their j doors, and millions of pounds a year, taken from the pockets of the working and middle-class population, helped to keep Germans, French, Belgians, Japanese, Swiss, and Cteecho-Slovak-ians in employment. In other words, 50 per cent of the goods being sold in many of the stores and shops catering for the masses with articles ranging in price from Id to 6d came from abroad. With a kind of common instinct the British producers set thenteeth and started out to combat the menace. One by one old ideas were scraped and Hew methods and machinery introduced. 3he glass industry, which fluid been practically crippled by the fierce competition of Belgium, was ofie of the first to reorganise, and firms in the North of England havnow recaptured practically the whole of the trade: in cheap glassware. Five years ago Japan and Germany had almost a monopoly of the trade in tooth' brushes.. British firms set up plant for their manufacture, and Few are now being imported. The same applies to vanrsh brushes. One of the epics of the great fight lias been tbe struggle to oust foreign mediani cal toys. It has been done by a London firm. In two years this firm ha” doubled its staff, and last year took £50,000 worth of business from Germanv. . One order was for 730,000 mechanical trains, but the. Geiman manufacturers were beaten both in regard to quality and price. Another London, firm, .which joined the fray, decided to adapt' idle looms for the manufacture of ribbon, a trade previously: almost exclusively in the hands of. the Germans and .Swiss. They are now turning out thousands of gross o r : yards a, year, and even exporting their products. Cheap lines in shoe laces, mending wools, elastic articles, such as suspenders and braces, skirt beltings cork socks and woven name labels, are also being produced hv up-to-date machinery in this factory. In another direction a third London firm has al most completely ousted the Continental trade in birthday bftoks, loose-leaf heitefiooks, pticket diaries, and stationery. One of the finest achievements Is tlie enterprise Of a firm of floo" covering. manufacturers. When thej found that the United States was exporting to Britain great quantities of floor coverings in handy sizes, they decided to compete, To-dny they have practically captured the English mar ket, and have increased the numbej of 'employees by 800 per cent. Another .American monopoly lias been brokne down , by a Scottish firm who succeeded in producing decorative wrappings, gift boxes, and flat Christmas cards cheaper than they could lie : turned out across the Atlantic. Theji Christmas card orders last year exceeded a million. Sheffield and thr midlands are cutting prices for cutlery, and by turning out good-class ar tides at popular prices are steadily regaining, the trade -lost to Germany One of the outstanding results is tha 1 a firm owning a wide-flung chain o' stores retailing articles of everyday uie at 3d-and 6d, are now spending £5,000,000 more per year on the purchase of goods of British manufacture than they did five years ago. Their purchase of foreign articles has decreased correspondingly. Woolworth’s new store at Harrow, contains 200 separate lines, but every article is of British manufacture. This tribute to the enterprise and doggedness of the British trader is emphasised by the fact that 95 per cent of the goods displayed in this firm’s four hundred stores in this country were made either in Britain or the Dominions.