Buy New Zealand Goods.

(Continued from page 20)

The conveyer track is an objectlesson in team-work. Twenty-one operators each handle one process at a time as the tray of shoes is passed down the line.

One unique exhibit was a comely heap of the tiniest slippers; even these miniatures, apparently made to fit elves or very small fairies, were elegant and decorated with minute bows of pink and blue. New Zealand Slippers Limited make every size from Kiddies o's to Men's 13's. The stock-room is a revelation; the world has been ransacked for the range of odds and ends that are needed to produce over 2,500 kinds of slippers. I was pleased to see a vivid blue dyed-sheepskin and to find that 150 dozen of this New Zealand-grown and processed article were used last year.

No wildest flight of fanciful design, no ultra smartness in shape or material, no extreme of luxurious comfort is lacking in the slipper made at New Zealand Slippers Ltd. I suggest a visit there for anyone who is doubtful at all of the modernity or efficiency of New Zealand industrial methods.

Lastly, I paid a visit to the spacious Social Hall, which has a good dance floor, and is naturally in constant use.

I returned to leather at the establishment of W. B. Darlow, in Auckland. Here, good New Zealand leather from the Sutherland Tannery is made into suit-cases, golf bags, and other useful articles, with Rugby and Association footballs for good measure. This is a specialist factory with twenty years of experience, research, and planning behind it. I naturally went first to see the oval of a Rugby ball being made. The segments are first cut with meticulous care, for they dare not be a fraction out of drawing. The stitching and assembling is done inside out, with hempen thread of six strands. The final sewing is most ingenious, but I was like George III. over the dumplings; I could not see how the ball was to be brought the right way round. The last stitches go in through the mouthpiece, and a sort of sleight of hand brings the leather right side outwards. The neatness and celerity of the operation beat any card tricks.

At Darlow's all manner of machines deal with the suit-case problem. The leather is shaped while it is wet, and exact calculations go into the use of the heavy presses so that it retains its shape when dry. The stiffening materials come from Whakatane, soundly made New Zealand goods.

The largest and longest-armed sewing machine I have encountered deals with the problem of the lengthy golf bag which Darlow's make in quantities. Some idea of the range of goods tackled by this factory can be seen in the showroom where baby harness, shields for butchers' knives, all sizes and shapes of suit-cases, camera cases, soldiers' wallets and money belts, kit-bags, and other articles of leather foundation, jostle each other.

Here, is a good instance of the utilisation of a New Zealand primary product, from the beast's hide in the paddock to the genial bowler's leather container for his wooden globes with the bias that causes all the trouble. W. B. Darlow is doing a national work. Here, too, I found confirmation of the fact that New Zealand tanneries are modern institutions turning out modern work from chrome to coloured leathers.

My last visit was to the Auckland Shoe Manufacturing Factory of Bridgen's & Co. Ltd., an old-established Northern institution. I liked the first wall motto I saw: “Keep Up the Quality.”

I have gone into some detail as to the modernity of equipment characterising our footwear establishments. It is in ample evidence in this Auckland factory. As described before, the pattern and “clicking” departments start off, and I had an interesting survey here of the pattern-filing cabinets. Track is kept of every order from its receipt to the time it leaves the finishing room. In this factory I had a closer look at the “stuck on” sole system. The page 42 upper sole is roughened a little to enable the cement to penetrate the fibre of the leather. The bottom sole is treated the same way, and when specially prepared cement is used, the sole is one solid but flexible piece of leather. This has solved many problems. I should mention that this particular process involves heating and pressing, the big presses exercising enormous pressure. At Bridgen's every individual shoe is examined for signs of waste or for hollows.

My guide said with a full sense of responsibility that: “Out of a million pairs not one sole will lift.”

It is often complained that New Zealand made goods are less popular with New Zealanders than the imported, though they may be better quality —and cheaper, too. Perhaps this prejudice does exist to some extent. If so, it certainly does not extend to toasted tobaccos grown and manufactured by the National Tobacco Co., Ltd. (pioneers of the tobacco industry in N.Z.), and as showing the widespread use of this tobacco there is the experience of a Public Hospital patient at Gisborne. Not until confined to the surgical ward did he realise the extent to which the use of the above Company's goods had grown. From 20 to 30 patients were in the ward at the time, and most of them rolled their own cigarettes. Only two brands were in evidence. Riverhead Gold was one, and it was smoked by all with one exception. When our patient was leaving he noticed that the one exception had a newly-purchased tin of Riverhead Gold by his bedside. Other popular brands are “Desert Gold,” “Cavendish” and “Navy Cut” (medium) and “Cut Plug No. 10” (fullstrength). All are toasted.”

As in the garment industry, I saw from plain visual proof, that machinesewing is better than any work by hand, and in the words of my teacher: “In ladies' shoes hand-sewing is a thing of the past.”

There are the usual batteries of modern machinery, but I found that the element of personal skill is still important. Many of the craftsmen at Bridgen's are old-timers, and there is an air of competence and planned organisation about the place. Every country has its own special problems in the footwear industry, for folks have all sizes, shapes, and conditions of feet. Bridgen's Ltd. in common with others of our boot and shoe manufacturers, are examining and solving the regional difficulties with true New Zealand initiative.

Naturally, there are many other fine organisations devoted to this branch of industrial activity in New Zealand. In fact there are more than fifty large-scale establishments, some of them specialising and others covering the field. However, limitation of space has kept me to the few examples quoted, but they alone furnish ample evidence that the New Zealand man and woman, boy and girl, from fisherman to dancing enthusiast, from hiker to party-goer, are catered for with New Zealand-made articles. Many a woman proudly exhibits a smart shoe which she fondly imagines is by some maker abroad, whereas it was well and truly turned out in a New Zealand factory.

In footwear, as much as in anything else I have seen, there is no justification for imagining that some foreign-made article is better than our own.