GERMAN SUBSTITUTES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 July 1938, Page 12

GERMAN SUBSTITUTES

WIDE VARIETY IN USE. A German who believes strongly in his country’s art of making substitutes (“Ersatz”) can enjoy them from the moment he rises in the morning until he goes to bed at night—and in his bed he may find sheets made of artificial silk or imitation cotton and blankets made of cellulose, writes the Berlin correspondent of the “Sunday Times.” When he shaves in the morning he may use a soap made out of coal —though his temper will not be very good, because the soap does not lather so well as the old-fashioned product. The banister of the stairs in the new German house is made of a new light metal alloy, synthetic wood or “pressed material.” The pipes may be made of a new material that bears a certain resemblance to celluloid. It melts at comparatively low temperatures, and thus can be treated more easily and cheaply than metal. In the “substitute” electric light bulbs the wires are made of aluminium instead of copper. And when the bulb is blown out Germans are expected to save it and have it remade. The wallet in which the believer in “Ersatz” carries his money can be made of fishskin. So can his wife’s slipper and the bindings of his new books. Fish, in fact, proves one of the most useful sources of supply for the manufacturer of “Ersatz” products. Big bakeries are allowed to use synthetic white of egg made out of fish costing only a fraction of what a real egg would and available all the year

round. New .factories are now being built to manufacture edible fats made out of coal, and they expect to produce in considerable quantities by 1940.