The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER SATURDAY, JULY 29, 1916. A TRADE PROBLEM.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXX, Issue 100, 29 July 1916, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER SATURDAY, JULY 29, 1916. A TRADE PROBLEM.

How very greatly the war has disorganised tlie industrial world is becoming more evident every day. It is also demonstrating how much we were obtaining from Germany thai we ought to have been manufacturing within the Empire, and if the lesson is well learned it will he a good thing for prosperity. The scarcity of dyes is one of the far-reaching side-issues of the war which presents a problem not easily solved. Very many trades are indirectly affected seriously by the high prices ruling for dyes, and some of these are trades in which the ordinary individual would scarcely imagine dyes played any considerable part, though they obviously must in other industries English correspondents state that textile manufacturers have been hardest hit by the failure of supplies, but the makers of paints and colours have felt the scarcity with equal force. Other trades affected are paper-makers, printing ink manufacturers, the linoleum trades, leather japanners, leathei cloth makers, motor and coach builders, sealing wax makers, artists' colour makers, soap makers, the engineering trades, and celluloid trades. The dyes question is only a part oi the greater question of the coal-tar products industry in which Germany has sunk a capital of £80,000,000. In the process of producing dyes from coal-tar hundreds of by-products are evolved, and if the cost of finished dyes is to be kept down to a reasonable figure many 1 of these by-pro-ducts must be put on the market. British dye-makers will, one writer emphasises, have to concern themselves with practically all the coal-tar products at present produced by German manufacturers, as only in the marketing of the whole of the usable materials can Britain hope eventually to meet the German competition. The problem is so big that its solution will demand years of research, organisation, and industrial extension. Money in substantial amounts must be available; but if capital is to be subscribed a Government guarantee that new undertakings shall not be overwhelmed at the end of the war by unrestricted German competition is essential. The bitter part of the whole thing is that this dye business ,vas practically stolen from Britain hi,; I but. manufacturers have been hr/.ilv content to buy from, and thus 1,-,!.-)■ -i up and strengthen, Britain's most t reacherous enemy.