INDUSTRIES FAIR

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 63, 12 February 1936, Page 12

INDUSTRIES FAIR

BIGGER THAN EVER

BRITAIN’S SHOP WINDOW,

With the return of relative prosper- j itv, it is not surprising that the British Industries Fair, which celebrates its “coming of age”_ simultaneously in London and Birmingham on February 17, will be bigger than ever (says a London correspondent). There will be a total of 24 miles of “shop windows,” and buyers arc expected from 64 countries. The plan (tried as an experiment last year) of opening the Birmingham “heavy” section—engineering and the like—a month alter the Olympia and White City sections in London, on account of the wintry weather, has been abandoned. Despite the postponement, on the last occasion, Nature behaved so badly that the anticipated attraction of sunshine and blue skies was not realised. Buyers and visitors complained that they might just as well have arrived in February, killing, as it were, two birds with one stone. London’s stand frontage will lie miles and Birmingham's Hi miles. Once more there is an increase in the area covered by actual exhibits—s2B.3B2 square feet, as compared with 526.804 square feet last year. The exhibitors number 1421, of whom London is sending 775. Other places are sending exhibitors to the fair in the following order:—Birmingham, the Potteries, Manchester, Sheffield. High Wycombe, Nottingham, Leeds, and Liverpool. Sections at Olympia and White City which are larger than last year include printing and stationery, fancy goods, pottery and glassware, chemicals, druggists’ sundries, jewellery, silverware, cutlery, and clocks. Scientific efforts on the part of manufacturers to cater for the overseas markets have been greatly developed. Export trade in furniture is increasing, and the section devoted to it at the White City will be the largest and most representative ever. A typewriting firm has perfected its plant so that it can supply keyboards in 80 different languages. Of interest to the housewife will be brass ornaments and utensils, which, as the result of a new process, will require the minimum of cleaning, handbags, non-tarn isliable beauty sets, and combs. The increase in outdoor pursuits and sports lias been responsible for a huge new industry. One firm alone is showing more than 100 different types and sizes of tents and ruck sacks. A Yorkshire cricketing firm lias produced a of improved design, which fits more effectively and comfortably. _A golf iron will be seen for which it is claimed to be “seven perfectly matched clubs in one.” Fitted with a steel shaft, it has an adjustable head, which can bo converted instantly into a putter or any one of six “off the green” irons. Most of the foreign buyers will come from Holland; Germany is second on the list, and Belgium third. Contingents will also arrive from France, Denmark, Switzerland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Spain. The Empire countries sending the largest number of buyers are the Irish Free State, India, South Africa, and Australia.