NEW FOOTWEAR REGULATIONS

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24901, 14 June 1946, Page 6

NEW FOOTWEAR REGULATIONS

PRODUCTS* TO BEAR MAKER’S NAME MOVE TO PROTECT PUBLIC (p.A.) WELLINGTON, June 13. Regulations were gazetted to-day which require that the name of the manufacturer or importer of fpptweay, or a representation of the name as approved by the Minister of Industries and Commerce, must be legibly and indelibly marked on the arch of the insole, or on such other part as the Minister may approve. The regulations are issued under the Board of Trade Act, and will be known as the Board of Trade (Footwear Marking) Regulations, 1946. The regulations will come into effect in three months, but will not apply to lines in stock at the expiry of that period, or to imported footwear ordered before that date. The regulations will, however, apply to all footwear manufactured or sold nine months after the date of the gazette notice. In a statement, the Minister oi Industries and Commerce (the Hon. D. G. Sullivan-) said (fieta essential pur pose was to protect the public against the purchase of interior footwear. During the war, he said, there hack been complaints concerning the quality of footwear. In fairness to the manufacturers, he desired to make it clear that defects in footwear had frequently been dye to th£ necessary use of substitute materials, and a shortage of skilled labour, a condition of affairs that had caused serious deterioration in the quality of footwear manufactured in other countries under wartime conditions. Manufacturers acknowledged that some footwear had appeared on the market inferior in quality. Both the Government and the manufacturers were anxious that this position should be corrected. “The name of the manufacturer, pi such representation of the name as may be approved,” said Mr Sullivan, “will enable the makpr to be identified without difficulty, so that the public will know by whom such footwear wag m at fe. Ip addition, Government officers carrying put investigations will have no difficulty in tracing the footwear to its source. Because of the absence of any means in many cases by which footwear could be identified, in the past, it hag not been possible to trace the cause of complaints back to the manufacturer responsible for them- That means will now exist by which die identity of the manufacturer will be known should in itself exert a salutary influence on those manufacturers who have bfeen careless in the quality of their product in the past.” It wga pointed out by the Minister that footwear bearing the standard

mprk need not bear the name of the manufacturer, since it was already a condition of the licence to use the standard mark, but that the number oi the licence must appear in association with the mark itself, so that manufacturer could be identified no less readily than if the footwear carried his name.