24,500,000 PAIRS OF BOOTS AND SHOES

Opunake Times, 12 September 1941, Page 3

24,500,000 PAIRS OF BOOTS AND SHOES

GIVEN UP BY BRITAIN TO HELP OVERSEAS TRADE Civilians in Great Britain are now gutting along with 24,500,000 fewer pairs of boots and shoes a year, but a steady increase in the numbers shipped overseas is reported from Northampton, heart of the shoo industry. Before the war Britain bought 105,000,000 pairs of leather boots and shoes a year and it is a sufficient indication of the large resources of the British industry that, not until July 1, two years after rationing had begun in Germany, was it necessary to restrict the total to 80,500,000 pairs.

An there is in addition a vast output of B&rvrco boots and shoes and of all kinds of footwear for export purpose'!, there will be no margin for waste. Types unnecessary in wartime are discouraged to-day and standard specifications may even be introduced for certain types of working and walking boots and shoes.

The continuing success of Britain’s shoo leather industries overseas is being maintained at home by tne active support of the Board of Trade working through tire Export Corporation. Distributors in tue Dominions and in the United States have been moat encouraging. In the United States offices have been taken in the Empire State Building, New York, as headquarters to promote collective or group marketing. This new enterprise is co-operating with British dress designers and the British Colour Council to ensure the correct Tnodelliug and colouring of the samples to be offered in the near future to buyers in the chief centres of the United States.