ARMAMENT NEEDS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 184, 5 August 1936, Page 18

ARMAMENT NEEDS.

TRADE PRICES AFFECTED. DELIVERIES HELD UP. Although some of the increased prices in the hardware and metal goods trades are caused by a general movement which dealers have felt for some time past, others are undoubtedly due to the effect of the British policy of rearmament, which lias requisitioned materials .and plants for armament making. The effect on the trade in Auckland is that prices have increased and deliveries are delaved.

| The slow delivery seems to apply mostly to machine tools- and heavy goods, and one Auckland house has. received advice that a certain kind of 1 lathe which was ordered could not be delivered for weeks. The delivery of "shelf goods" is also slow, however. I Local hardware firms state that they are receiving letters by every English mail stating that delivery cannot be guaranteed, and, indeed,' the situation appears to be getting even more acute. A number of the manufacturers have very adaptable plants, and can switch over to Government orders without trouble. The alternative centre of purchase is Canada, but firms who have placed orders have been delivery cannot be guaranteed there either. The reason advanced is that Canada is just emerging' from the depression, and for the time' being the demand is still a little ahead ' of production. j Prices in ordinary household lines have! been advancing by small percentages I from time to time. Aluminium ware i-s j soon to be 5 per cent dearer, and builders'j hardware has risen 10 per cent. This' latter increase is not surprising, however, since building is booming in England. Firms who have London representatives with authority to make the best possible arrangements 011 the spot are in ' better posittion than their rivals, and find that their goods are coming forward regularly.