CLOTHES IN BRITAIN

Grey River Argus, 11 June 1943, Page 3

CLOTHES IN BRITAIN

REVIEW OF RATIONING.

LONDON. June 1

An unofficial survey of the two years of clothes rationing reveals that the system has reduced the British public’s expenditure on clothes by £600,000,000 and that it has also saved 500,000 tons of shipping and released more than 500,000 workers for essential war industries. Women in the first year of rationing spent 18 per cent, of their coupons on stockings, 15 per cent, on lootwear, 19 per cent, on underwear, 23 per cent, on outer clothing and 25 per cent, on other needs.

Men spent 26 per cent, of' their coupons on shirts and underwear, 17 per cent, on footwear, 15 per cent, on socks, 22 per cent, on suits and jackets and 20 per cent, on other needs. The figures for the second year were similar, except that women used fewer coupons on underwear. A Board of Trade official said that the people played the game remarkably well and that the system, on the whole, operated like clockwork. D. Landau and Son, Limited, London, wholesale lace merchants, were fined £3,800 with 200 guineas costs, for over-supplying their lace quota. Sydney Landau, a director, was fined a similar amount and similar costs, and also £lOO and three months’ imprisonment for furnishing a false return to the Board of Trade and using false invoices. The Company oversupplied to the extent of £16,000.