GUM BOOT SUPPLIES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 57, 8 March 1944, Page 4

GUM BOOT SUPPLIES

DISTRIBUTION QUESTION "BULK TO FARM WORKERS" (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. The difficulty of procuring gumboots was emphasised in the House of Representatives yesterday by Mr. Corbett (Nat, Egmont). Speaking in the Address-in-Reply debate, Mr. Corbett said that women and girls on dairy farms had been seen working almost knee-deep in mud last spring. They were barefooted, while men who were better fitted physically had obtained gumboots when engaged in other industries.

Mr. Anderton (Govt., Eden) said that under lend-lease 41,500 pairs of gumboots had arrived in New Zealand and had been distributed.

Mr. Doidge (Nat., Tauranga): It's the women that want them.

Mr. Anderton said 70 per cent of the gumboots had gone to primaryindustries. The remainder had gone to dairy factories, land girls, flax workers, miners, fishermen, seamen, railway workers and abattoir employees. Other shipments were to arrive and would be distributed in the same way.

Mr. Doidge: Women are still without them on the farms.

The Minister of Supply, Mr. Sullivan, gave an assurance that the overwhelming bulk of the available gumboots had gone to the farming community, and a small number to other sections. One small shipment had arrived since the outbreak of war.

Captain McCombs (Govt., Lyttelton) explained that only 27,000 pairs of gumboots had arrived or been made in New Zealand.