CLOTHING FOR CHILDREN

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 24027, 16 August 1943, Page 3

CLOTHING FOR CHILDREN

DIVERSION OF WAR PRODUCTION APPEAL BY MRS POLSON From Our Parliamentary Reporter WELLINGTON, August 13. Arrangements made for changing over from military production to the civilian production of clothing and footwear were mentioned by the Minister of Industries and Commerce (the Hon. D. G. Sullivan), in the House of Representatives to-day when replying to Mrs W. J. Poison (Opposition, Mid-Canterbury) about the \shortage of baby clothing material and children’s shoes. Mrs Poison saidlshe had- had a letter from a t Society drawing’ attention to itne* .j ? jSition. So low were stocks [that' in a few months they would be {into another winter with a serious 'shortage. She produced an analysis of a survey made by the society, one section of which showed that there were no cot blankets in Christchurch and Lyttelton, and that they were scarce in Ashburton. She said sht* could go on for pdges. She asked that production be diverted from adults to children. Adults could manage with less, but children could not. Children’s snoes. too, said Mrs Poison, were in short supply. The Minister had indicated that there would be an improvement because of importing, but those imports were only from size 0 to 9. Shoes for larger children came exclusively from New Zealand factories. One Christchurch firm, which had specialised in children’s shoes, was now fully engaged on war contracts She asked if some production could not be diverted to children’s shoes. The Minister said he had had a conference with the Plunket Society about a month ago, ahd after he had explained the difficulties of manpower and materials, they were satisfied that the utmost that could be done was being done. As a result of a mission to Britain, they had succeeded in obtaining greater quantities of materials than they might have expected, having regard to the rationing scale in Britain. In the main, these covered the requirements of babies and children. Definite arrangements ■ had been made for diverting some New Zealand factories to the production of civilian goods in an endeavour to catch up on the shortage.