DEARER SUITS LIKELY.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 January 1920, Page 6

DEARER SUITS LIKELY.

SHORTAGE OF MATERIALS. WORLD-WIDE DEMAND. Substantial increases in the price of suit and dress materials are predicted by those engaged in the industry in Auckland. Inquiries made show that manufacturers in England are very reluctant to accept orders, anil tliey refuse to guarantee delivery at any specified time in ant case. No orders are being accepted for delivery before next August at. the earliest, and all cabled orders accepted under the foregoing conditions are subject to any further advances which may be made before the goods are delivered. Recent advices from England are to the ell'ect that quotations for yarns are ever on the ascending scale, and delivery dates of the manufactured cloths are projected long into the future. The world shortage of cloth resulting from the war is still far from being met. and the consequence is that English manufacturing firms are besieged by buyers- The destination of a great many of the orders is the Continent, where the supply is but a drop in the bucket of the colossal demand. "More production'' is the cvv throughout the woollen textile industry. The rtpresentative of one large importing Ann slated that he, considered the price of tailor-made suits would advance before long to .€'lo or .120, and he expected that fully £lO would have to be paid for the ready-made article. Another representative of the trade, estimated that the milium New Zealand were able to supply only one-fifth of the demand for cloths in the Dominion. One reason for this was that there were not enough mills. There was also, he said, not enough labor to secure a maximum output from the mills already in operation. Many looms were idle because of the scarcity of weavers. This class of labor could only be secured by importing female weavers from England. There had been a number of girls taught weaving in New Zealand, but the tendency at prc-sent was for girls to avoid factory work. Before the war the immigrants to New Zealand included a proportion of weavers, but practically none had arrived during the period of the war and since hostilities were concluded. The general impression among those engaged in the industry in New Zealand was that more should be done by the Government to encourage the immigration of those suitable for working in woollen mills. The necessary information regarding the needs of manufacturers in New Zealand in respect to labor was supplied to the Government some time aiio. In spite of the good conditions of work in New Zealand, and the very remunerative pay, there was room in the mills and factories for hundreds more workers. The representative of another firm considered that supplies of material might become easier in the course of a 1 month or two, 'but he did not think ' prices would be reduced, because recent advices were to the effect that prices in England were still advancing-