£40.000 ORDER

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20953, 4 November 1939, Page 20 (Supplement)

£40.000 ORDER

AN ARMY REQUIREMENT (From a Correspondent.) LONDON, September 23. Firms in Sheffield—Britain’s “ steel city”—have received orders from the War Office for £40,000 worth of knives, forks, and spoons with which the new Militia Army will eat its rations. This is a very individual order, even for the Sheffield cutlery industry, and increases in the regular personnel of all three services will have a further effect in the “ domestic ” output of a city which has recently been predominantly associated in the minds of everyone as the birthplace of immense weapons of war. Meanwhile, returning confidence is having its effect on world markets for domestic articles. “ The cutlery trade will be busy from now until the end of the year with orders which are coming in as a result of the British Industries Fair,” a Sheffield market research expert said. “ Supplies in many countries have been purchased from week to week, and stocks are running low. The country which is able to supply an imediate demand on the returning of more settled times is in a favourable position. Having realised this fact in advancefi Sheffield manufacturers have already begun to benefit from the practical steps they took to ensure that with the return of confidence, which is already apparent, they would be able instantly to supply the world’s demands.”