BRITISH INDUSTRIES’ FAIR.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 4757, 3 January 1918, Page 2

BRITISH INDUSTRIES’ FAIR.

THE FIGHT FOR TRADE

EFFORTS OF BRITISH MANUFACTURERS.

Tlio next British Industries Fair will be opened in London on the last Monday in February. The purpose and scope of this fair are fairly well known by this time to British -people. Before the war Germany used to attract buyers from all parts of the world to the great Leipzic Fair, where her manufacturers’displayed samples of the fancy goods that they were prepared to manufacture. Inducements of many kinds were offered wholesale buyers to attend this fairThe manufacturers did not hesitate to spend money on entertainment, and in return they received big orders and learned what articles, were going to be in demand Then they concentrated on the production of the chosen lines in huge quantities at the lowest possible price. The scheme admittedly was of very great assistance to German industry. When the war broke out and the British Fleet cut Germany off from most of her accustomed markets, the British Board of Trade set itself to assist British manufacturers to supply the goods that Germany had been in the habit of exporting, not merely to the United Kingdom, but to other parts of the Empire, and to neutral and Allied countries. The holding of a British Industries Fair was one of the means devised by the board, and the fair was so definitely successful that it has been made an annual fixture. It is not a public exhibition. Invitations to the fair are issued by the Board of Trade, -and admission is restricted to bona fide wholesale buyI ers in the trades concerned. Its success .may bo measured by the fact that 1 last year the Board of Trade, after arranging for accommodation at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Imperial Institute, had to cut down exhibitors’ applications for space by as much as GO per cen+. British manufacturers are fully alive to the importance of the fair. The 1918 fair is to be held in premises provided by the London Dock Authority. Some idea of the size of the warehouse that is to be used, can be gathered from the fact that its area would l>e sufficient to accommodate two full-sized Rugby football fields. The fair is to bo restricted to the following trades:—Earthenware and china, glass, fancy goods, paper stationcrv and printing, toys and games. Many of the articles that will lie shown will he those the British manufacturers are prepared to supply for the 1919 Christmas trade. The rapid growth of this fair ought to convince everybody that even m war time, when unexampled demands arc being made upon British. industry in the production of munitions, the British manufactures are prepared to ' hold their own in the world s markets. The goods that will he exhibited at this great fair will have been produced by trades that are at the same time bearing their full share of ! the burden connected with the man- ’ ufacture of munitions of all kinds- ' The factories and worksnops are t’-rn--1 in«- out war equipment of all kinds on ! a scale that was regarded three veais ago as far beyond the capacity oi the nation, and yet at the same time they are ready to offer the markets of the world the goods that the enemy counI tries can no longer send abiond