TRADE IN FRANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 February 1921, Page 12

TRADE IN FRANCE.

LOSSES THROUGH SLUMP, Reports from France show that the comparatively sudden fall in prices is proving disastrous to a large number of manufacturers who have accumulated large stocks during the past 12 months, and now find themselves compelled to sell at a loss. The wool trade and the leather trade are being badly Alit. One important Paris firm in the father industry has failed with liabilities of over 40,000,000 francs, and others are reported to be in difficulties. Equally bad reports have been received from Lyons, the great silk centre, owing to the price of the staple product having fallen 50 per cent, since the spring. At least two failures have taken place, owing to the impossibility, it is asserted, of obtaining further financial accommodation. Large and even enormous fortunes have been made in the Lyons silk industry since the war began, and it is understood manufacturers who-now hold large stocks are seriously contemplating coming to an arrangement between themseFves to throw large quantities of the manufactured product on the market at a loss, and be content with averaging out of the large profits of the past four or five years with the certain loss that faces them.