BUY BRITISH GOODS

Hokitika Guardian, 9 February 1931, Page 2

BUY BRITISH GOODS

RAILWAY TICKET DEVICE. LONDON, December 19. A new form of railway passenger tic--1 ket will be in use on the whole of the London Midland and Scottish system early in the new year. From then on- : wards, by means of an ingenious device, travellers will receive, inset with the ticket issued by the booking clerk, ' a reminder that they should buy British goods. Within the company’s tickets in the future will he found a brief and telling advertisement of some well-known product. In size, shape, and general characteristics the tickets will be as usual except for a small but important deviation. At the top in the centre of the ticket is a little red tab bearing the word “pull.” Acting on this instruction the passenger obtains from the interior of the ticket a small card bearing an advertisement, ' “Human curiosity,” said Sir Joulah Stamp, president of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, at a lunchen of business men, “is the hub on which this new wheel of publicity will revolve, When you realise that the scheme applies to 200,000,000 passenger tickets a year, you will appreciate what a powerful force in advertising is about to bo introduced. Care will be taken that only firms of repute will be allowed to participate.” Replying to the obvious suggestion that the passenger’s curiosity may become satiated after a while, it is pointed out that, as the particular contents of the envelope will be unknown until the instruction to “pull” has been obeyed, very few will be able to resist the temptation to “lok and see.” Two machines, which have taken three years to design and construct show how the small advertisement is printed and inserted in what is called the Mones-Cross ticket. A reel of cardboard is fed into the machine on the same principle as that employed in the rotary presses of great newspapers. It passes through nine successive operations, and emerges at the rate of 50,000 tickets an hour a machine with inset, and red tab, the printing of the station of issue and the destination of the passenger being done elsewhere. Sir William Crawford and Sir Herbert Morgan expressed satisfaction with new venture, the latter suggest* :ng that a. sporting tip on the ticket would ensure is success.—(Laughter.)