A tariff of twenty-five cents on each pair of ladies silk stockings brought into the Holy Land has revived an industry which had considerable American capital invested in it and which had been threatened with complete collapse because of Japanese dumping competition.
Evidence of the tariff’s effectiveness was made available with the reopening of the Meshi Silk Mills which had been forced to close down about six months ago because of inability to compete with Japanese prices. The mills, owned by a former American Jew, operate 68 looms.
The High Commissioner for Palestine, in fixing new tariffs on silk and artificial goods at double the old duties, has averted what appeared to be the death of the country’s infant textile industry. A number of the mills, many of them with American capital behind them, had closed or been threatening to close because of the ruinous Japanese competition. The new duties will make it possible for these mills to compete against the low-cost Japanese wares and give employment to several hundreds of skilled workers whose jobs had been in jeopardy.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
