WOOLLEN GOODS SCARCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 February 1920, Page 8

WOOLLEN GOODS SCARCE.

PROSPECTS FOR THE WINTER. HIGHER PRICES EXPECTED. < The motto of retail clothir.g houses with regard to woollen goods is supposed to be "hi summer, prepare for winter" That means that their efforts during the summer months are devoted to laying in stocks of blankets, rugs, and other heavy woollen goods, fer which (here will be an increased demand when the cold weather commences. So far as this season for buying is concerned it appears that to work in accordance with ilie motto will be an impossibility- The buyer for one large Auckland firm stated that it was not possible at present to obtain more than one quarter of the blankets, flannels, and rugs that his house would normally require. Of the goods coming to hand from the Dominion mills, he said, the sum tetr.l for the ivliolo market was no more than one large firm could take-, and yet it had to supply everybody. So far as the retail trade was concerned, then was certain to be a heavy shortage in the coming season. The wholesale firms were practically out of supplies. He had been told by the representative of one of them that its share of a consignment of blardccts that had come in was 072 pairs, mid the firm had a list of ilflO clients with substantial orders waiting to be filled.

The state of affairs regarding tlieso woollen goods applied, it was said, with oven more force to piece woods, comprising the tweeds and other woollens required for suitings and women's costumes. The mills were manufacturing considerable quantities of tweeds, but there were also clothing factories run in conjunction with the mills, and the greater part of the output was sent straight to these factories, there to bo turned into ready-made clothing, leaving the outside clothing factories, the wholesale trade, and the tailors substantially without supplies. In the circumstances it might be expected that the mills would be extended, in order that the insistent demand from outside for their products might be met, But there were several adverse factors militating against this course. Labor was scarce, and even if it were offering m an adequate degree, the difficulty of obtaining machinery still appeared" insurmountable. The New Zealand buyer would gladly supply his wants from the Dominion mills. Seeing, however, that they were not able to cope with the demand, it would ha necessary to look to Britain for manufactured woollens. Here New Zelaand would come into competition with the whole world, for the demand for British goods was insistent from ail sides. ~ The prices of imported goods would be prohibitive compared with those im the New Zealand market. Nevertheless there seemed to be no alternative, and from that it ivas deduced that prices would tend to become very much higher than at present. In fact, there was every prospect of the landed cost of material now on Ihe water being higher than the prices at which similar goods were being retailed at the present time. The only result that this firm could see was that the public would lie driven to restrict its purchasing. . As an incidental to the state of the ivcol market, a letter ivas produced from the Belfast representative of the firm detailing an equally gloomy prospect as tegarded linen. The supply of raw materia!, the writer stated, was very far below requirements. The Irish 'linen manufacturers were accustomed to receive great quantities of flax fibre from Russia, and until there was some prospect of settled conditions in that country it was impossible to expert anv improvement. At least six times" the prices prevailing before the war might be expected to rule, and in the meantime the manufacturers were doing as much as they could in cotton, The letter uas written before the state of the ex- | change had produced the present crisis in the cotton market. j