DOMINION WOOLLENS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2292, 21 June 1921, Page 4

DOMINION WOOLLENS.

ARTICLES IN SHORT SUPPLY,

The supply of New Zealand wool* len manufactured goods remains unequal to the demand, notwithstanding the fact that the mills are now released from the military requirements, which absorbed so large a proportion of their output during the years of war, says the Auckland Herald. New Zealand flannels, blankets, rugs and knitted hosiery are all very difficult to secure, and it seems a curious anomaly that the Aucklander wishing to procure one of his country’s world-famous rugs has to make considerable search before he can find the article he wants.

- “There is at present a marked shortage of blankets and good rugs,” stated the representative of a well-known woollen firm,- “and only a very small choice in either article at present offering* in Auckland. There has been a shortage of these two lines in New Zealand for years past. Their value is known to be so much superior to the imported article that one can offer English rugs and blankets of equally good design considerably cheaper, but it is always the New Zealand article that sejjs.”

One explanation given 'as to the shortage of theso goods was that New Zealand mills, are making up more tweeds and suitings than formerly. There is a larger quantity of these on the. market at present than there has been for many years past. This time last year it would probably have been impossible to placo an order for New Zealand tweeds in any Auckland warehouse, whereas there is now a farly good supply on hand. There has been a slight drop in the demand for these, and prices have been lowered owing to large importations of English tweeds. As the result of a position brought about by the present financial stress, the goods are being sold, in many instances, at cost prices and under, although there lms been no reduction in prices from the mills.

Shortage of skilled labour in the mills is held to he largely responsible for the reduction in output of certain classes of woollen goods, although in the case of one wellknown Auckland mill, it is stated that the output had increased during the last twelve months.