CROCKERY SHORTAGE

Opunake Times, 16 September 1941, Page 1

CROCKERY SHORTAGE

EMPTY BINS STOCKS EXHAUSTED Feminine competition for silk stockings is no keener than the search being made by Now Zealand wholesale houses and their retail customers for all kinds of household crockery and enamel ware. One effect of it is that tin saucepans have appeared*on the market, and for the first time since the last war are selling by thousands of sets. A year ago, or even less, no one would have looked at them, although they are of excellent quality. It is possible to visit citv warehouses and be taken round rows and rows of empty, bing which formerly were crammed full of pottery, china and enamelware. Now they carry travesties of their usual or pre-war and pre-import Restriction ora stocks. Some lines are not represented at all. A departmental manager who has rocentlv completed a tour of New Zealand warehouses- said that he did not see one whit© and gold breakfast cup—“a wholesale house’s bread and butter line”—throughout his travels.

New Zealand manufacturers are trying to cope with the shortage of earthenware articles, the importation of which has "been completely or partially prohibited. Such things as mixing bowls, pudding bowls, eggcups and ;jugs are being or are to be made. However, delivery of new lines is not

yet sufficiently forward to make any difference to the shortage and it cannot be said how soon the gap will be filled.

It is stated that the position is entirely due to the import restrictions. British, manufacturers of both china and earthenware lines are said to be able to take, and in fact are keen for, orders. Enamelware is in a different category. The war has been the cause of the hortage. Bins that used to contain hundreds of saucepans and 'other lines in popularly favoured colours yawn as empty as those which used to hold cups and saucers, this being the reason for the appearance of the sets of tin saucepans. The shortage of enamelware can be gauged from the size of orders received for the tin substitutes.. They have sold by thousands of sets, each saucepan set consisting of three sizes. Other lines -are equally scarce. All show the slowly accumulating effect of restrictions over the past few years or the sudden difference caused by war conditions, 1