SILK STOCKINGS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 63, Issue 4464, 15 August 1941, Page 5

SILK STOCKINGS

LABOUR GOVERNMENT FACES DEFEAT. FEMININE WRATH. WAR ALMOST FORGOTTEN. (By J.T.P.) Apart from war subjects one of the difficult problems exercising the- minds of members of the Cabinet at present is the more equitable distribution of available supplies of silk stockings among the women of New Zealand, so that existing disadvantages may be removed from some sections of prospective buyers.— News item. Many people have been wondering —and wondering—why Mr Peter Fraser continues to dally in England and Scotland instead of returnin <r to New Zealand. Well, J.T.P. will let you, dear gentle reader, into a deadly secret, of which he got the wheeze by the merest fluke. Walter Nash, after taking great pains, as he thought, to put everybody in a good mood in view of the political possibilities of the near future, finds that, far from wooing— even in the spring when a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love—he has antagonised a large feminine electorate, all of whom are yelling for his blood. And all on account of silk stockings I While the women are knitting for soldiers, while they talk war—-still remains one thing behind their minds, fixed and ineradicable— The shortage of silk stockings ! So Walter, with the wind thoroughly up. sent Peter the following cable, which is published without the permission of the ’"’•ess Censor; For goodness’ sake secure a couple dozen million pairs of ladies’ silk stockings. Irate females here driving me crazy. If you don’t, the Government will be wrecked at a silk stocking election. And so Peter is hunting the highways and the byways of England and Scotland in search of silk stockings, for he knows full well that a silken tongue on the hustings would be a poor substitute for silken hosiery when the irate ladies, forgetting the war, get after his hide when he returns to God’s Own Country. * * * * Poor Mr Nash. Sympathise with him. Mr Mere Man. He explains—<and explains—but his excuses and pleadings fall on deaf ears. Thousands of indignant girls and women simply will not heed or be satisfied with his statements ascribing the shortage to the war, to the lack of operatives < — to everything in fact. And so he pleads in vain; In no cas-e has there been refused an application to import into New Zealand raw material for the manufacture of silk stockings. Present production is 60,000 pairs a week, and plans are in hand for the making by existing manufacturers of an extra 600,000 pairs annually. “ Poof I ” exclaimed the SweetYoung Thing, on reading his statement, issued to appease but simply to act as kerosene on the fire of indignation. “ I wear out ten pairs a year myself ! ” Which sent J.T.P. into same mathematical calculations. The last census returns give the female nopulation as 765,388. If it is assumed, as is surely possible, that the 184,998 females under 15 years of age, and the 32,600 females who have reached the years of feminine discretion of three score and ten or more, are either content or obliged to wear wool or lisle (the latter term J.T.P. got from the Sweet Young Thing, who says it’s simply an artistic camouflage Word for “ cotton ”), this leaves 547,790 women who want silk—and silk only—to grace their limbs. Well, if the ladies were all like J.T.P.’s Sweet Young Thing it would require over five million pairs to whet the appetite of the fair sex. It is a thought that may well bring a worried frown to fathers of daughters of a< marriageable age—and to husbands of wives of any ave whatsoever. . . And J.T.P. at the thought shudders and thanks the fates that he still rejoices in a state of single blessedness.

But Mr Nash’s Worries remain. Half a million women on the hunt for silk stockings—or his head—is no joke for any man, let alone a Minister of the Crown already being hunted by a horde of Nationalists.

But the age of female chivalry has departed not. Into the defence of the poor hen-pecked Minister rushes the only woman who has ever been kissed in the House of Representatives—'and then not by Broadie or Stan Goosman either. Listen unto the new voice from Waitemata:

While realising the seeming importance of silk stockings, especially to the young, and while expecting deputations about remedying the stocking shortage, Mrs Dreaver, M.P., said there were many more important problems to be considered to-day. “ Silk is used for parachutes, and vast numbers of these are needed for our airmen,” she said. “ Let us keep plenty of silk in the air. That is our protection.”

Well, there you are, ladies, proud of calf and limb, if the wiorst comes to the worst—< Either one million and more stockingless legs—or Slacks !