'A correspondent of the "Financial "Times" thinks that there is more ery than wool, if I may put it that way, in the Japanese threat to withdraw from the Australian wool trade in retaliation for the curtailment of Australia's imports of Japan's cotton and rayon.
Japan is now the second largest! buyer of Australia's wool and her purchases for the current year will Probably exceed 700,000, "But the writer quoted says that the bulk of this is" required for" the internal trade, due to the Increasing use by Japanese of woollen clothing. "It is unlikely." he says "that, in pursuance of a policy of retaliation, mills would bbe closed for want of raw material and thousands of workers be thrown out of employment"
Actually, by the latest cables, it oaks as if Japan and Australia will come to terms. The "Financial Times" thinks thet the Japanese threat to buy from South Africa is very transparent bluff, South Aftiea it says could not supply more than a third of the precise kind of wool that Japan wants.
Whether it is due to the Japanese demand for wool is not stated. but "bespoke tailors" have been circularizing their clients that_ the price of suits must go up. Shoes have gone up, owing to higher costs of leather and wages to women workers. Coal, best household, is being offered at 80s. a ton, summer prices If we wait till autumn to order, we shall pay more." And income-ox up toot It is a weary China has so long been regarded as practically mistress of the world's tungsten market, that it is interesting (Continued on page 167.)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.