The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 4/The Glove Manufacturing Industry
The Glove Manufacturing Industry
By Dr. V. Partl.
Before the war the glove making industry of the countries now comprised in the Czechoslovak state played a decisive part in the exportation of this article from what used to be Austria-Hungary. The total value of Austrian glove exports in the years preceding the war amounted on the average to thirty or forty million crowns (six to eight million dollars). About 85% of that was manufactured in territory now belonging to the Czechoslovak Republic. The total output of gloves was about three million dozens. The principal seats of the glove manufacturing industry of Bohemia were the districts of Prague, Kodaň, Příbram and Karlovy Vary. In the Prague district alone about 20,000 experienced workers were employed at this trade, as well as many more thousands of various helpers, chiefly seamstresses. The average cost price of a dozen of gloves before the war was about 20 crowns (four dollars). The principal raw materials of this industry were kids and skivers, imported principally from the Balkan countries under the marks of “Constantinople” and “Phillipople”. Skins imported from other countries, especially India and America, played only a secondary part.
During the war the situation of the Bohemian glove manufacturing industry grew constantly worse, and in 1919 it became critical because of the lack of raw materials. The bad state of the Czechoslovak currency and the necessity to pay first of all for imported foodstuffs made the importation of foreign raw materials for the glove industry almost impossible. The necessary consequence of this abnormal situation is general unemployment in the trade; experienced workers seek other employment, and unless the situation soon takes a turn for the better, the splendid Bohemian glove industry will face complete destruction. Today there are only some 1500 expert workmen available in the Prague district. At the same time it cannot be doubted that an improvement in the situation would bring back the majority of the old hands to the trade in which their skill is so valuable. The present prices of gloves naturally correspond to the changed situation; a dozen pair cost now some 1200 crowns (about $21.00, as the exchange stood at the end of April).
It is hardly to be expected that the Czechoslovak glove manufacturing industry will be saved through an early improvement of the international exchange difficulties. Other ways must be sought out of the desperate situation. Our glove making industry, in consequence of the lack of raw materials, cannot supply the international trade with sufficient products; its present annual output is only about 300,000 dozens. But it can offer its skilled labor, and that is the point of departure in the way to better things. The reputation of Prague gloves was world wide before the war, and the industry can be re-established, if it gets the needed skins. The presence of skilled workers is a big asset that should not be wasted. It presents an opportunity to the foreign capitalist to utilize the unemployed hands of a trade with such a long tradition behind it. A business basis for this enterprise can be found without great difficulties, and the relative stability of the water freights on the Elbe permits a sufficiently definite calculation.
The proposed plan for rescuing the Czechoslovak glove industry must start with the principle that the risk of currency fluctuation cannot be assumed by the foreign investor. The investor would organize the import of the necessary raw materials for the glove manufacturers with whom he would make a contract for the working over of the skins into gloves of definite description. The more manufacturers would participate in this arrangement, the better for the foreign investor. The Czechoslovak government would undoubtedly lend its support to such a deal. The investor would have his representative in Czechoslovakia, presumably in a Bohemian city on the Elbe; this man would receive the raw materials, make distribution of them among the manufacturers participating in the contract, receive from them the manufactured goods and look after their shipment abroad to his principal. The price of manufactured goods would be agreed upon in some stable foreign currency, and the Czechoslovak manufacturer would receive payment for the work performed by him in Czechoslovak crowns.
Such an organization seems to present the only practical scheme to secure materials needed for the Bohemian glove industry upon terms that are likely to attract the foreign capitalist.
Reprinted from the “Československý Merkur”, March 15, 1920.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in 1920, before the cutoff of January 1, 1930.
This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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