Nylons are no luxury, unionist tells inquiry I Statements that women’s hosiery was . a luxury were ill-founded, and the result of loose thinking:, a witness told a Tariff Board inquiry yesterday. And invariably the state- ments carne from men, he said. The witness, Mr. Arthur Loft. Australian . Textile Workers’ Union general secretary, said hosiery was to a woman what trousers and socks were to men. “If we were to accept hosiery as a luxury, we would have to assume it i could be dispensed with-and advise our womenfolk to go bare-legged,” he said. “That would call down the wrath of that section of the community whose sense of morals would be sadly shocked.” Mr. Loft said the Com- monwealth Government’ did not regard hosiery as a lux- ury. It had ordered nylon stockings from local manu- facturers for the Women’s Defence Forces. He told the inquiry that 300 union members had been dismissed in the last year. Only declaration of Bri tish dumping had saved tex- tile employment from being halved, he added. Mr. L. S. Gough, manag- ing director of Prestige Ltd., told the inquiry that if more British hosiery were dumped on the Australian market, Australians would be put out of work and production -? stopped. There were more than .’just a few bad boys” in Britain clumping hosiery on our market, he said. The threat, to Australia’s industry still existed. The inquirv. hplrl If» deter- mine a recommendation ri duties on oversea hosiery, closed yesterday.