TRADE CONDITIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 February 1922, Page 5

TRADE CONDITIONS.

SUDDEN TRADE BOOM PREDICTED. Touching on present trade conditions in a speech at Manchester recently, Sir Charles Mandleberg, one of the founders of the Federation of British Industries, said trade was suffering from the instability of the exchanges, but now that the best minds of all countries were concentrating on this subject and on the restoration of the world’s peace generally there was every hope o-f remedying our conditions in this respect. His belief was that the expected revival of trade, when it did come, would come suddenly, as did the slump. When the world’s buyers felt that prices were touching bottom the demand would come again. At present prudent buyers did not feel inclined to place large orders which might take many months to execute when they feared that on delivery the value would have declined, as had been notoriously the case during the last fifteen months. Their difficulty as manufacturers n-.w was that, although raw materials were on a comparatively low basis, the cost of production remained high to the small output relative to the overhead expenses and to the restriction of output obtaining in some of our industries. He was glad to see signs that labor was recognising the fallacy of this policy, and it was high time. When costs were decreased through increased output, and prices were on a more reasonable and stable basis, his belie! was that there would be a considerable increase in the demand, and, as he had said, it would come suddenly. He urged manufacturers, therefore, not to lose any time in completing their selling arrangements abroad, so that when the buying began they would have their selling representatives on the spot ready to do business for thetai.. The commissioner service was at their disposal precisely for that purpose.