"BE BRITISH"

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 109, 4 November 1926, Page 10

"BE BRITISH"

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —Some nine months ago through a London house we ordered a piece o£ machinery from a British firm which was advertised in a British trades journal as British entirely, made by skilled English workmen, and of the best Sheffield steel. But on receiving the invoices from Home, it is stated that the country of origin is Germany. What can one do in the face of such firms which do not act up to their slogan "Be British." Buy British and keep the money in the family?" As a New Zealander, sir, I very much resent such treatment. I was mentioning the above fact to a fellow-tradesman, and lie gaid that our own Government was not much better, stating how amused he was at our postal authorities stamping the correspondence that passed through their hands with the slogans: "Be British." Buy British," etc., while the Government does not act up to this itself. He informed me that he had opened Government specifications for Government workers' cottages which distinctly stated that all doors must be Oregon pine, all 3-ply used must be Oregon, and, in fact, 50 per cent, of the piaterial was to be of American manufacture. Where are we drifting? Fancy a Government putting money into the pockets of people who, when we wished to place our butter and other products on their market, trebled their tariff.—l am, etc.,

TRUE BRITISH.

■ [Inquiries show that one contract for the erection o£ twenty houses on the Handel Block, Hutt Valley Settlement, has been Set which provides for the doors being of Oregon pine. The reason for specifying Oregon is stated to be cheapness. All the other cottages built, and a batch of 70 now being erected, contain only New Zealand material.]