Trouble From Untested Shoes

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30826, 11 August 1965, Page 1

Trouble From Untested Shoes

Some Canterbury footwear manufacturers would have been better pleased if they had had a type of rubber sole tested before putting it into shoes, said the director of the New Zealand Leather and Shoe Research Association (Mr F. W. Woodroffe) in Christchurch last evening. Very serious trouble, he said, had occurred, because certain materials had been put into shoes without testing. “Once they were put Into abrasion tests, we knew it was wrong,” said Mr Woodroffe. Mr Woodroffe was addressing the annual meeting of the Canterbury Footwear Manufacturers’ Trade Group of the Canterbury Manufacturers' Association.

“Some of those here tonight would be happier if they had done that testing with their shoes,” said Mr Woodroffe. When shoes were being sent back, he said, it was far too late to look at what had been put into them. It was necessary to look at what went into shoes beforehand.

This would save a lot of illfeeling, both from the retailer and the wearer. New Zealand today, he said, had adequate facilities for testing material used in shoe manufacture. TEEN-AGE MARKET One market that New Zealand shoe manufacturers must hold, said Mr Woodroffe, was that of the teen-ager. “It is a most critical and fickle market,” he said. “That market must be shown something new each few months, or we shall lose ground. I think we must all realise how necessary it is to give that attraction.” Mr Woodroffe said that there had been an enormous growth of colour variations in New Zealand-manufactured shoes in recent years and the variety of the colour range was fantastic. A few years ago, he said, black, navy, and brown, were almost staple diet in New Zealand. The public today were offered a very wide range of New Zealand-made shoes, with attractive finishes such as glow-calf, bronze-calf, frosted-calf and various embossed grains. Mr Woodroffe said that unfortunately there were still a few small abattoirs and killing places in New Zealand that were giving the country a bad name in certain quarters.

They were the cause of concern and great annoyance and considerable loss to New Zealand when their hides

went overseas without being treated by a boracic acid napthalene process. This permitted certain bacteria, not killed by salt curing, to live. Mr Woodroffe said it was a sorry fact that it was the advent of certain plastic materials that made New Zealand tanners improve, if they were going to hold business at all. The New Zealand footwear industry, he said, was going to become more dependent on scientific advice and knowledge than it ever had been in the past. Technical education in the tanning industry and footwear industry in New Zealand was an “absolute must.” “Our success and development will very largely depend, in the next 10 years, on technical education.” said Mr Woodroffe. Great possibilities were before the footwear industry, with new fields opening. Mr Woodroffe will retire from his research post at the end of the year to take up bee-keeping in England.