"MADE IN GERMANY."

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11282, 9 January 1915, Page 5

"MADE IN GERMANY."

(•'■ Woman at Homo.") Many women have been unaware, of the enormous amount of cheap German silks that, have found their way into England, and they will learn with surprise when they go to buy materials for making-up that the prices have risen, or that the silks themselves are impossible to obtain, and this applies also to the cheaper dress fabrics. T have always thought it a reprehensible thing that no hint of whore fabrics, silks or .stuff were manufactured is. (riven when one buys them. If mi assistant is asked, he generally professes ignorance, either real or assumed, and. without creating quite a big hiss, it is difficult to know tlio " nationality "' of what one wears.

Many of the big shopkeepers have made no kind of real effort in the pa»st to support British manufacturers, and simply bought showy German goods which gave them big profits. They and they alone have been responsible for the criwsc for cheapness and the edging of British manufacturers out of the. market. At the prosent moment the v.Oman of moderate means is probably wearing Gorman avool and cotton combinations, (German woven or stuffed knickers, German cheap silk with cotton-heel hose, Gorman cheap silk blouses, German stuff fckirts, and a German fabric long coat. and probably an Austrian felt hat, and German gloves and umbrella. The trail of Germany Ims been over everything the Avoman of moderate moans buys—lior handbag, her purse, her clock, her kitchen utensils, all conio from the land of the Hun. It has been said that no difficulty ought to be put in the way of the English shopkeeper in selling of! tho Gcr.-

man Roods that remain on his hands. It is probably it Christian tiling to buy them, jmtl prevent bis snlWrinn h^s; but when we do buy them 1 think wo would bo doing a patriotic thing if in place,-; when* \u> are regular customers w<i insl«'tl lor the buyers in the tJitl'crent departments, and told thorn of the injury wo consider they have done, to British manufacturers in the past by creating ;ind this craze 'o-r cheapness. Those of us who are not well oil" have boon pert-mnded into buying German stuffs and silks which have looked well for a, time and then havo ffol. .shabby quickly. Our mothers, who did not dross in German-made, goods, may "not havo looked so temporarily f-rn.irt as we have done, hut they never had to discard their silks because they went into boles, or their stuffs booauso they cot shabby so quickly. yo liavo been wonring Gorman rubbish wliilo thov wore the old " won I-wear-out " British stuffs and silks.