GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2091, 17 February 1920, Page 4

GENERAL NEWS ITEMS.

British professional stamp collectors are live times as mueli business this year as they have done in any previous year. Thousands of new war stamps have been issued since !!• Id, and in the scramble to lay hands on them the Junior t’hila-s lelic Society of Great Britain has doubled its membership in the last 'six months. Jls roils now bear the names' of J,()()(i members, anion” 1 them several owners of; seats on the Stuck Exchange, who arc investin” 1 (heir earnings in rare stamps, which thus far have been exempt from taxation. The leading rubber broker on the London Exchange began collectin”’ war stamps in DM. 11 is collection, made as an experiment in the investment of earning's, sold six months later for £5,000. Today the stamp dealer in whose hands it is being.offered for sale values it at £20,000. Its original cost to the rubber broker was about £2,000. A hundred professional dealers in stamps have sprung into being in England, with no other object than (o'pour their savings into the stamps of the New Europe, and to hold on to their collections as an investment. Two stamps of erstwhile German possessions in the Tacitic, surcharged by their British conquerors, brought nearly £2OO each the other day to their fortunate owners. Stamp fiends Inna; paid as much as £OO for a single stamp issued during the early British occupation of Bagdad. The high prices of suitings have raised a protest from the Wellington Tailors’ Employees’ Union, whose members have forwarded the following resolution to the Prime? Minister: —“That tins meeting of the employees in the tailoring trade are of opinion that the prices eharged by the Dominion Woollen Mills for Doininion-manufaetured material for gentlemen's suitings is out of proportion to the price' paid/to the. farmers for wool. We therefore respectfully request you to cause the Board of Trade to inquire into the cost of producing material for suitings manufactured in the Dominion.'’ Many complaints have been made of late that there is a great disparity between thejmee of wool and the suitings turned out by woollen mills in New Zealand. When the matter was referred to him, the Prime Minister said the Board of Trade was investigating the complaints, and in due course would make a report to,him. The board, however, hud a groat many other important matters in hand, so that ho did not expect a statement immediate! v.