Evening star., 1926-03-12
PRICES SEEN
IN TEXTILE TRADE
Big Cotton Crop and Better
Mill Practice in New
England Factors.
BY j. e. ROYLE.
Special Dispatch to The Star.

Special Dispatch TO The Star.
NEW YORK, March 12.-Every
time a field hand in the South swears
at a mule right now New England
feels better about 1t. announcement
today from Texas that cotton plant
ing had started in Texas under al
most ideal weather conditions brought
marked encouragement to Northern
textile men. An executive of one of
the most powerful of the cotton tex
tile associations admitted frankly to-
day that curtailment of cotton acre
age was acutely feared by New Eng
land mills.
When it is analysed that attitude
may be translated directly into the
statement that OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
of shirts and dresses comprising most
of the population of the United states
need fear no drastic or eXtraor-
&znI..y price advance in the near 1u-
ture. That same analysis, if contin-
ued makes it clear that the New
England textile situation is not so
contradictory as it appears on the
surface.
Mills I'm Fair Shape.
The situation of the New England
mills is fair today in general. In some
centers the outlook could not well De
blacker, but such conditions should
not be taken as characteristic OF New
England as whole. In other sections
there are alert, enterprising manage
ments, Wvrking to meet the demands
of the public and paying dividends
through progressive methods.
Textile men are being charged with
inconsistency for complaining first
over the high price of raw cotton and
then for declaring that the drastic
drop in that staple had injured their
prospects. They explain, however,
that while high cotton prices leave
them no margin of profit, fiuctuat1ng
6yices hamper mill output and drastic
declines tend to reduce acreage, with a
consequent shorter supply in prospect
for the future.
One notable reason why the New
England manufacturers have not
profited from the large 1925 crop of
cotton is that the weather of last Fall
reduced the proportion of grades eS'
sential to fine goods production. and
manufacturers were compelled to pay
premiums for such grades. irrespective
of the general lowering of quotations.
There is not the slightest doubt
that some New England mills have
suffered from poor management and
archaic machinery.
textile matters, has pointed out that
some mills were turning out what
the management thought the public
should buy rather than what the pub
lie wanted to buy. One mill manage
ment has just completed a survey in
its own plants which showed that
practically every employe bought,
wore and used products of some COM
petitor. The reaction to this by the
management was that the employees
were not thoroughly loyal.
Not Public Demand.
Experts, however, claim that it
showed simply that the goods were
not what the public in general wanted.
The opposite stand is being taken
by the more successful plants. as was
shown by the opening of the Fall
goods of the Amoskeag Manufactur-
ing Co. this week, which featured an
extraordinarily large variety of rayon
mixture goods, and the expansion OF
operations by the Pepperell Mills or
Riddeford, Me-, and the Pacific Mills
of Lawrence, Mass.
The textile trade is gradually re-
covering from the abnormal condl-
tions which followed the war and get
ting back to normal. But there is no
doubt but that the New England END
of the industry has suffered from
some bad management and from LABOR
troubles. The labor situation In the
South is far better, and Northern
manufacturers frankly admit the ad-
vantage held by Southern producers.