PAPER CLOTHES THAT WASH.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1973, 6 May 1919, Page 4

PAPER CLOTHES THAT WASH.

COTTON FROM NETTLES. Some of Germany's successful wartime hunts for essential domestic articles are described in information obtained by the Government and published by the War Trade Intelligence Department (1 Lake Buildings, St., James’ Park, S.W.). The document also throws some light on some of our enemy’s preparations for dumping cheap and fraudulent goods on us after the war.

Some of the substitutes which survived the hard test of practical use were; —

Boots and clothes brushes with wood-fibre bristles. Wood ashes as a substitute for soap. Burnt to a white colour, they removed grease, perspiration, and dirt from clothing and the skin. About If pints of ashes are added to between 3 and 4 gallons of warm water, and stirred till well mixed. The nettle industry is supposed to have the best prospects of those sprung from the war. Nettle products furnish a perfect substitute for cotton. From nettle fibre the simplest of the latest of cotton articles are made. Mackintoshes are made from paper yarn; also overalls, table cloths, curtains, handkerchiefs, collars, embroidered blouses, and imitation persiau carpets. One firm also-made a complete set of horse's harness.

To convince (he public that paper' articles could be washed, one firm set up a section where such things were publicly washed and boiled. A stocking after several washings was softer ami thicker than when

Quince slones left in water for twenly-four hours produced a (hick oil resembling castor.

“Very good” coffee is made from beetroot parings. “Tea” is made from dried blackberry lea\.es.

Cooking oil is made from the fruits and seeds of fruit trees; also from walnuts, hazel and beech nuts, and from the seeds of conifers and (if weeds.

Coke fragments are made into briquettes by mixing with bard pile!) or tar pitch. All through the war, as material and labour could be spared, work has continued on the Hamburg-Am-erika 52.000 ion liner Bismarck, launched in Juno, L 914, and now “she is almost, ready for post-bel-lum trade.” One German firm is slated to have continued mailing bicycle parts in accordance with a British standard pattern and stamping them with the trade mark and letters “B.S.A.' (Birmingham Small Arms), As the parts were finished they were all packed in cases and dispatched to Amsterdam. The Government informer was told that “these B.S.A. parts were for the English market.”

In December, 1017, another informant was told by a Baden jeweller (hat he was sending a considerable amount of cheap jewellery to Switzerland, whence it was exported to America and England. “Unless we can replace Russia by some oilier force of equal strength there will be nothing left in Europe capable of opposing 80,000,000 of the Germans occupying the centre of the Comment, united, capable of indefinite effort, and having still open to them the temptation of world power; in fact, having it open to them even more completely than it was in 10f4, when they took their great gamble. “And (Ids can be done, this new force can be created, only in one way. If we shall create real, strong, national States in Poland and Bohemia, in Roumania, and out of the Southern Slavs, as well as by completing the unification of the Greeks, we shall have added to the balance against German aggression more than 50,000,000 of people divided into four nations, but capable of very urgent development, capable oE becoming real national entities, capable at no distant time of defending themselves and barring the German pathway to power.”