SEARCH FOR RUBBER

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 178, 30 July 1942, Page 6

SEARCH FOR RUBBER

ENVOY TO GO OVERSEAS "MOST DETERMINED EFFORTS" (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. "New Zealand is to send an envoy abroad specially to try to get more rubber," said the acting-Prime Minister, Mr. Sullivan, to-day. "In regard to rubber and tyres, it would be scarcely possible for me to use language that would be an exaggeration of the difficulty we are confronted with at present. "We cannot get any tyres at all into this country unless we can find rubber, and the prospects of getting rubber are not at all bright. "We have been able to make arrangements with Australia for the manufacture of a number of tyres, incorporating in them a certain amount of rubber which we were instrumental in getting authority to secure," said Mr. Sullivan. "These arrangements would not meet more than a couple of months' supply in future, so we are taking steps to send a special envoy to the United States, and if necessary to England, to concentrate on this particular question of getting sufficient rubber to carry the transport of this country. "I am anticipating we will have at least a measure of success. The most determined efforts are being made by the Government to get rubber for tyres and other articles, and with the assistance of the Minister at Washington, the Hon. W. Nash, and the supply missions in England and America, rubber will be got if it is possible to get it."