It is said that the Government ought to have adopted
last spring a scheme for the supply of a certain quantity of "standard clothing" at fixed prices. This clothing might have been made from the wool sold by the State to the trade at special rates before the wool control ceased. We do not know why the Board of Trade rejected this scheme ; it may have thought that, as the trade was divided on the matter and the public showed indiffer- ence, the experiment was hardly worth trying. In any case the "standard clothing" would not have gone far to satisfy the very large public demand for the more expensive kinds of cloth. The charge of " profiteering " really amounts to a demand for lower prices to British customers than foreign customers are ready and eager to pay. It is surely unreasonable to expect the woollen trade to fix one price for the export trade and another and much lower price for the home trade. In a free market prices adjust themselves according to supply and demand.
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