WHOLE CASE OF WATCHES PILLAGED ON JOURNEY TO N.Z.

Grey River Argus, 4 September 1948, Page 7

WHOLE CASE OF WATCHES PILLAGED ON JOURNEY TO N.Z.

P.A. CHRISTCHURCH, Sept. 3 A case which contained £l6O worth of wrist watches when it left Switzerland, was found to be empty when it was delivered to Fred Sladen and Sons, Ltd., a Christchurch firm of manufacturers’ representatives this week; The principal of the firm said that the case was one of five his firm was expecting. He did not know what had happened to the other four cases. The pillaged case arrived by the Pakeha at Wellington from London on August 24, The goods were insured, but it was not the insurance his firm was wanting. The watches were ordered for returned servicemen with importers’ licences, secured through the Rehabilitation Department. Pillaging was getting worse according to the experience of his firm. Previously this year some of the packages consigned to it had been broken into, and a few articles removed, but this was the first time a case had been empty when it was collected from the Post Office. , , “We have told the manufacturers not to write the contents on cases, he said. “We have cabled our Swiss principals instructing them to send parcels by air freight.” He added, however, that some pracels received by air from overseas had also been pillaged.