........
low, possibly £15 million or less a year against the £15/£25
million minimum which the Council regarded as necessary.
la
Of
course, investment in UK industry generally is currently too
low and Lancashire would attribute some of its short-fall to
its peculiarly unstable conditions.
12
Much of the stagnation in demand since 1968 can be ascribod
to the general state of the economy. But an important factor
has been the switch to knitted fabrios (much of it made outside
Lancashire) which both compete with traditional woven
constructions and tend to use filament rather, than spun yarn.
Total UK production of cotton and man-made fibre fabrics
1970 was in fact rather higher than the Textile Council predicted,
but with knitted fabrios taking a larger share.
in
13 The rise in imports of cotton textiles this year (22 per
cent more cotton cloth and made-ups) has all along seemed to
us inevitable as importers make the most of their last duty-free
facilities from the Commonwealth; it is uncertain how many of
these imports (which all figure in the "apparent consumption"
statistics) are actually being sold as distinct from stocked
in the hope of higher prices after the tariff comes in. But
importe of woven man-made fibre fabric, which are not restricted
and will face no tariff change next year, have also rison, by
no less than 33 per cent, this year. This increase, though a
lot higher than the rise in the previous years, is partly duo
7