A GERMAN “ERROR.”

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4646, 9 January 1924, Page 4

A GERMAN “ERROR.”

YARD MEASURES 37 INCHES. An Auckland business firm has received a letter from a Leeds manufacturing house which r,eveals pne of the slim tricks by which the Teuto?i is endeavouring to get himself back into the world markets on a favourable basis. This is what one might call watering the field for, the future crop. The letter states that a client of ihe firm recently complained that some goods delivered by them were short in width. By good luck the client happened to be in England, and it was ascertained from him that he was using a steel tape measure made in Germany, and which proved on testing to be one inch wrong tb the yard, that is to say, the measure measured 37 inches. The measure was stamped with the metre on one side and with the yard on the. other. The metre measure was correct, but the yard showed 94 and a fraction centi-metres to the yard. “This,” states the letter, “ can hardly be anything hut deliberate on the part of th j Germans. The London Chamber of Commerce is taking this matter up very seriously, and inform Us that they have received similar complaints from Japan ate to shore ’ lengths and widths in woollens.” The same Leeds firm had also received complaints, from South America recently on the subject of measurement which puzzled them until this German steel tape trick came to light. It is expected that similar Complaints will come in from all over the world, as obviously if this German treasure has been distributed world-wide buyers of goods will bp complaining that English deliveries of piece goods are short in width.