THE COST OF FOOTWEAR.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 9, Issue 544, 29 June 1920, Page 3

THE COST OF FOOTWEAR.

About three months ago we published two leading articles in which' we showed how by the ill-considered and unjust restrictions placed by the. late National Government upon the] export ~>f hides the tanners and boot manufacturers of this country were ei.abled to annex at least a million sterling that ought to have goue irtto the pockets of the stock owners and another million from the pockets of the general public, who have to buy boots and shoes. Our readers will remember the specious promises made by the Government that if the tanners were allowed to buy their hides at half their value a standard boot would be supplied at a proportionately low cost. For two years the embargo upon hides lasted, and for two years the pablic in vain asked: "VV'heie is the standard boot?" We are induced to refer again to the price of footwear, because last Saturday a manifesto was issued by those interested in the leather and boot trades in the Auckland district. It would perhaps be better to say four manifestoes combined in one, and signed respectively by the tanners, the boot manufacturers, the boot importers and the boot retailers. Like most ex-parte statements

it contained a good deal of special pleading designed to convince the general public that they are getting a fair deal, but unfortunately for the compilers contradictions occur in it which will scarcely warrant the intelligent reader in believing that the document is a really sincere statement of the actual conditions. We should like our readers to contrast the two following statements, the first made by the tanners, the second by the boot manufacturers:— 1, Leather has been twice reduced during the last two months. Such reductions have fully corresponded with the lower price pf hides. 2 Since the big advance in upper leather manufacturers have bought very little. **■

It is common knowledge that immediately following the removal of the restrictions upon the export of hides the price of leather was very sharply advanced, although this leather was made from hides bought under the restrictions at half values. Comment' upon this bearing of the ma*ser was made by the Prime Minister, but we are not aware that anything was done to compel the tanners to accept a fair profit. The price of hides rose sharply for a couple of weeks, and then receded by about GO per cent. Did the price of leather then recede in sympathy with this fall? Not by any manner of means. With naive simplicity the tanners add a postscript to their statement which completely gives their case away:

Present leather prices were based on hides bought in May of this year when they were over 100 per cent. Jlftgher in price than for the corresponding month of 1914.

Where does the consumer come in? Because for a week or so the price of hides rose, (As a matter ol fact the sales reports told us that the tanners scarcely bought anything at the advanced prices.), the price of leather remains at the standard lixed during the month of May. That it has fallen 60 per cent, since then is evidently considered to be a matter no respectable consumer ought to trouble his head about. But it looks very much as if the boot manufacturers had noticed the flaw in the tanners' logic, for they hasten to the rescue with the following:— Take the price of hides. At present the tanners cannot buy at anything like the price at which hides are supposed to be sold by auction.

What are we to infer from this? Do the boot manufacturers intend to seriously impugn the correctness of the hide auctioneers' reports and the accounts they send to the farmers? And if such a statement had to be made, why was it not made by the tanners, who buy hides, and not by the manufacturers, who do not? On the whole, we believe a tactical blunder has been made in the issue of this singularly unconvincing statement. From the tanners' point of view the less public attention is drawn to the price of footwear the better for them. And no casuistry can cover up the wrongs the public have suffered and are apparently still going to be forced to suffer ui less Parliament recovers sufficiently from its apathy to interfere. Nothing can alter the cardinal points of the whole sordid business, or obscure the ".ain features of the issue, which are:--1. That the tanners were enabled for two years to buy hides at half their value to enable a standard boot, low in price and sound in quality, to be produced—a promise never carried out.

2. That they have been allowed to fix the present price of leather, not in accordance with the prices at which they have bought hides, but in accordance with the prices at which they are stated to have refused to buy them. 3. That the plundering of Peter has not paid Paul: i.e., the million or two taken from the hides' producer has not benefited the consumer. 4. That by the gravest error of judgment the National Government did not restrict the export of leather when it restricted the export of hides, and thus permitted huge profits to be made out of the natenal which ought to.have been used to, the people of the country.