EMPIRE PRODUCE FIRST

Evening Star, Issue 21130, 16 June 1932, Page 16

EMPIRE PRODUCE FIRST

MOVEMENT BY BRITISH LOCAL AUTHORITIES LONDON. May 11. A clause slating that quotations for Empire produce must be made whenever possible has been added by sixtysix borough councils and thirty-six county councils to their forms of tender, according to an inquiry just made. As a result 1,250 institutions are now following the rule " Empire first ” whenever adequate supplies are available. This follows on visits recently made by the Empire Marketing Board's officers to 143 local authorities and S 7 mental hospitals. Tho London County Council provides for over 100,000 patients and staff and for the requirements of over 900,000 teachers, students, and children. It is one of tho largest bulk purchasers in the world, and has given a preference to British gtiods for the past twenty-live years. Tho council is now finding it possible to buy a largo proportion of Empire goods than ever before. Out of nearly 1,400,0001 b of apples consumed 1,100,000 were Empire. New Zealand mutton and lamb is purchased to tho tune of 105,0005 t. Australian and New Zealand butter, East African coffee, Australian beef, and South African fruit is,also bought in largo quantities. EMPIRE TIMBERS. The London County Council and other local authorities have also adopted the policy of • using Empire timbers wherever possible. The Falmouth Harbour authorities, for instance, recently decided to .use Australian turpentine piles for the new wharf at Falmouth docks. This decision was made after prolonged comparative trials with American greenheart. British Columbian timber is now being used for harbour works at Belfast, Grimsby, Falmouth, and Southampton, and for housing schemes on many of tho larger undertakings at Coventry, Liverpool. Glasgow, and in London. Empire timbers (mainly Canadiangrown Douglas fir) have been exclusively used in forty-five out of fortyseven of tho major works for which tho London County Council has received tenders during the last two years. Other woods used by the London County Council are East African teak, which has been accepted by the council as a fire-resisting timber, and is said to bo unequalled for windows and outside doors; podo (tho strongest known soft wood), African olive, and Australian hardwoods, such as jarrah, karri, Tasmanian oak, and Queensland walnut, which have decorated many of tho banks and public buildings erected in London during the last few years.