NOTWITHSTANDING the technical disadvantages of a change of proprietorship and management, The Furnisher and Decorator has already “caught on,” as the expression goes, with many new friends, without losing any old supporters. We may be excused, perhaps, in drawing attention to the “good word” which a leading London paper, the Daily Chronicle, gave us a few days ago: “The Furnisher and Decorator, which is now in its twenty-first number, has passed into new hands, the editor, publisher, and manager now being Mr. E. Menken, whose name is well known to the trade, having for nearly twenty years been intimately associated with the Furniture Gazette. The first number of this journal makes a wonderful show for the modest twopence; it is handsomely printed, whilst the eight full-page plates of designs will be found of great practical value to the cabinet maker, upholsterer, decorator, and workers in kindred industries.”
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In some sections of our craft, trade is certainly not so brisk as it ought to be. The chair trade of Wycombe and the surrounding neighbourhood has certainly not displayed any remarkable signs of life during the month which has just passed, and manufacturers are thinking that it is quite time matters began to mend. The same remark applies equally to London trade, and a similar report is furnished from the west of England, so that things all round present a most depressing aspect. The upholstery section of High Wycombe industries —a comparatively recent development to which we have more than once referred —has been phenomenally quiet, and many of those who have been making a leading line of upholstery goods of late have found it a difficult matter to keep things in any state of activity at all.
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Some comment has been occasioned (says an American contemporary) by the fact that the imports of foreign carpeting into the United States since the McKinley tariff law went into effect have increased considerably as compared with those of the same period of the preceding year. The explanation is found in the heavy importation of Oriental rugs and carpets during several months past. The demand for these goods is not affected in any marked degree by the tariff, as they are purchased by people with whom price is not the first consideration. The actual effect of the tariff is made clear in the reports of the British Board of Trade, which show a very great decrease in the exports of British carpeting to the United States. The imports of foreign carpeting into this country are confined almost entirely to the product of British and Oriental looms.
