TNAG-0244-FCO40-280-Exports-of-textiles-from-Hong-Kong-to-USA-1970 — Page 99

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U.S. manufacturers which all pointed to the competition

they were experiencing from the Far East; they were losing

customers to importers and were themselves being forced

either to buy foreign fabrics or the finished article in

order to remain in business. These letters had all been

copied to members of Congress and could be expected to have

a strong influence on them. It was essential that the U.S.

Government should solve the textile problem before Congress

took the situation into its own hands. What he could not

understand was why there was such difficulty in reaching

agreement on man made and wool fibre textiles when agreement

on cotton had been relatively straightforward.

49.

Sir Eugene Helville said that first and foremost

cotton was sui generis; it presented a particular problem

for many countries deriving from the historical structure

of the cotton industries of the developed countries and the

efforts by developing countries to begin their industriali-

sation by movement into the relatively unsophisticated

manufacturing processes of cotton textiles. Exporting

countries had believed that the orderly development of

their cotton industries was in their interest. Their

experience with the operation of the L.T.A. had dis-

illusioned them.

50.

Mr. Jordan agreed and added that the L.T.A.

was something of an experiment which had not worked out

/as

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