THE DRAPERY TRADE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2347, 27 October 1921, Page 4

THE DRAPERY TRADE.

GLOOMY VIEW OF THE FUTURE

At the annual meeting of the Wellington Retail Drapers, Clothiers and Mercers’ Association, held last week, Mr W. Simm presided. In moving the adoption of the report, the chairman emphasised the difficulty, amounting almost to an impossibility, of carrying on retail trading successfully and profitably at the present high cost of doing business, due in the main to the high level of wages obtaining throughout New Zealand. After April, 1922, an imperative necessity might arise for the cost of living bonuses that had been added to the basic wage be reduced. In spite of the Prime Minister’s optimistic speeches, it was undeniable that there were dark clouds on the commercial horizon;

Mr .S Kirkcaklie remarked that every employer and every employee would sooner or later be forced /to recognise the truth of certain economic facts that could not be controverted, and that the only solution of our present individual/difficulties lay in a reduction of wages. The wages of Capital had/already been drastically reduced. Capital was entitled to receive a fair return, just as Labour was entitled to and had been receiving a fair return. To-day Capital was not receiving a fair return, and was going out of the country. We are all going to suffer, unless we could retain the fullest return for the exporting of our staple products. There were reasons why our wool was not being bought. He thought it spoke well for the textile trade that there had been so far no bankruptcies,