A SICK INDUSTRY

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1016, 5 July 1930, Page 9

A SICK INDUSTRY

LOWER COST IS TONIC FOR COTTON TRADE PRESCRIPTION OF EXPERTS British Official Wireless Reed. 11.35 a.m. RUGBY, Friday. Important proposals for the rehabilitation of the Lancashire cotton industry are made in the report of the Government Committee of Inquiry, which is published today. The committee recommends the use of cheaper raw material, ring spindles and high-draft spinning and of high winding machinery. They find the cost of production in Lancashire is substantially higher than among its competitors, and they urge upon employers and operatives the importance of considering means of reducing the cost of production and recovering the lost export trade in cotton goods. It is pointed out that in most cases a reduction of costs could only be gradual and would require at every stage the closest and most cordial cooperation between employers and operatives for the manufacture of cheap standard lines, in which British goods have been so largely ousted from the Eastern market.

Short-stapled Indian cotton, It is stated, has hitherto been but little used in Lancashire, where the longstapled, but more expensive American cotton has been almost exclusively preferred. In this way Lancashire’s competitors, some of whom have acquired great skill in the mixing of Indian and other cottons with American cotton, have secured the initial advantage by using cheaper cotton for their manufacture. The formation of larger units in the spinning and manufacturing sections of the industry would also serve great purposes, the committee says. The industry requires a marketing system so organised as to secure a market for goods by the most economic methods. The committee finds that markets in which the Lancashire cotton industry has suffered its most serious losses are those in the Near East, particularly India. China and Japan.