LACK OF STATIONERY

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 195, 14 May 1940, Page 9

LACK OF STATIONERY

Army Officers Canvass

For Supplies Dominion Special Service. AUCKLAND, May 13. Stationery of all kinds is reported to be in such short supply at Papakura Military Camp that officers who are expecting drafts of men to enter camp this week have been reduced to canvassing business houses and their friends in the city seeking even plain paper and envelopes. Such a shortage characterized the office work of the first and second echelons so much that a suburban bank was forced to exhibit a notice advising orderly clerks to apply at other branches for stationery. “We have not been given, a single thing,” some of those who made the canvass stated. “The records offices of tlie units are merely bare rooms with one table and a form, and, had it not been for the goodwill of the men we know at camp, we should have been forced to make do with these poor facilities. However, that would not lie so bad were we able to obtain, a scrap of paper ou which to make records.” The Army habit of conducting most of its business by menus of forms adds to the stationery trials. Even if the officers should lie .fortunate enough to obtain blank sheets of paper they have to tie ruled and cut. into copies of official forms. It was suggested that if the Government Printer could not meet the demand for official forms urgent supplies might be obtained elsewhere. It was also mentioned that the shortage of training manuals, which was noticed with earlier echelons, still obtains.