DEARER SOAP

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 33, 7 August 1918, Page 8

DEARER SOAP

Providing it means less washing, say confinement of cleansing to the cheeks and salient features of the" face, most small boys will be rather glad that soap is to become much dearer. The trouble is the great scarcity of caustic soda. This is an almost absolutely prohibited article of export from the United Kingdom, and it has been so since soon after the war. Recourse was had to the United States so far as New Zealand.was concerned, and here again caustic soda became a prohibited export. Now a little is let out, but shipping space is short. It is used in the making of munitions, at any rate for war purposes, and therefore little or none is to spare for commerce. Mr. Alec Newton, of the . Caledonian Soap Works, formerly paid £12 per ton for caustic soda. To-day it is practically unobtainable at any price, even up to £60 to £70 per ton; in fact, Mr. Newton has paid as high as £100 per ton. Caustic soda is not made in the Dominion, at any rate not in commercial quantities. In consequence of this shortage of a prime constituent in its manufacture, household soap is now very high in price, and promises to become even dearer.