RATIONING OF CLOTHES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24912, 11 May 1942, Page 4

RATIONING OF CLOTHES

INTRODUCnON IN AUSTRALIA COUPON SYSTEM SHORTLY (Rec. 7 p.m.) CANBERRA, May 9. The coupon system of clothes rationing will soon be introduced in Australia. Until the necessary organisation is completed and coupons printed, sales of clothing and materials will be restricted in all shops. From Monday, shops must reduce their sales to a weekly quota equal to 75 per cent, of their average weekly sales for 1941. These restrictions will apply to men's, women's and children's clothing and materials from which clothes can be made, blankets, bed and table linen, towels, handkerchiefs, boots, shoes, hats, and gloves. While the restrictions apply there will be a ban on advertising the goods involved. Cards can be displayed in shops indicating the price and the nature of the articles for sale. A Necessity of Total War The Prime Minister. Mr J. Cur tin, said that the object of the restrictions was to secure a continuous supply of clothing for everybody on the home front. " Economy is our second fighting line, and clothes rationing is an inescapable necessity of total war." Mr Curtin said. " Every store selling clothes will be affected—the big city draper and the country general store, the exclusive hat shop and the little suburban milliner alike. Wholesale and retail merchants with whom .the Government's plans have been discussed have promised their full cooperation. "War economy means what it says. All our economic resources all metho'ds of buying and selling, of carrying on business, of feeding, housing, clothing, transporting and amusing ourselves—must be placed second after the requirements of national defence," Mr Curtin continued. " Regard will be given only to. the minimum requirements of the civilian population. The Government is aiming at deciding not how little we can reduce peace-time essentials, but to what extent we can maintain the bare minimum. The darning needle is a weapon of war these: days. Use it on your old clothes. Do not buy new things. Inescapable Restrictions

"Unless each citizen fixes in his or her mind the fact that we are in imminent danger of losing our- national existence and acts accordingly, all of us are in peril of having imposed on us the economy now suffered in the conquered countries. The Government knowns that pegged wages, curtailed profits, crushing taxation, and unmarketable primary products are not pleasant things, but they are inescapable in an all-out war economy," the Prime Minister concluded.