PROFITEERING IN COTTON.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 January 1920, Page 4

PROFITEERING IN COTTON.

Under the heading of "Plunder," the Lyttclton Times remarks editorially: "Those people who are vexed about the cost of clothing—among other thingswill be interested rather than pleased to know that the cotton-spinning companies in Britain appear to be doing very well. Their balance-sheets are, indeed, enough to make the average investor's mouth water. A London journal has been making an analysis of the annual reports of fifty of these companies in Lancashire whose yearly accounts close in September. The lowest dividend paid to shareholders was 10 per cent. Here is a pretty table of yearly dividends:—

lii addition to paying these handsome profits, several of (lie companies made distributions of reserves among shareholders, by way of what is technically known as "watering" stack—a practice which- the "Economist" a considerable time ago remarked had developed during the war into quite an epidemic. The returns referred to in the foregoing are stated to be probably the best ever' recorded in the history of cottonspinning in Lancashire, but it was expected that companies taking stock in December would show still higher figures. We need offer no apology for the title given to this article. The profits made by these manufacturers are improperly high, flnd are drawn from their customers, at home and abroad—we believe a reel of cotton costs something like ninepence in Christchurch to-day. These British investors and master spinners are doing their best to cause industrial and political unrest, for the workers' increased wages cannot overtake '2O per cent, dividends, nad the consumers' patience is not inexhaustible. In the meantime, the leading politicians, like. Mr. Masscy and bis friends here, are continually preaching political unity and industrial anity, pins a call for increased production. We believe most heartily, as all reasonable people do, in greater production and improved relations between Capital and Labor. We cannot help realising, however, that the balance-sheets of i very many trading concerns are unjust to the masses of the people and gravely jeopardise industrial peace. In New Zealand we hare profiteering to suffer, and we have a Government pledged to stop it—a Government which boasts of the drastic powers which it possesses to circumvent the plunderer The trouble is that the drastic law is not. put into [operation." ]

Number of Dividend Companies. Per cent. 1 .. .. .. 120 1 .. .. .. 80 3 40 H 30 3 a 23 20 0 15 S .. .. .. 10