H—44

To the order of the Eastern Group Supply Council 900 anti-aircraft spotting-chairs and 1,546 fire pumps, trailer and stationary, and for New Zealand Army 207 Beaverette light armoured cars were supplied, and for the United States Forces in the Pacific 2,641 motor-vehicles were reconditioned. Numerous items of allied engineering stores not in the direct munitions category but of equal importance to the fighting Services were manufactured during the war. The principal items ordered by the Eastern Group Supply Council are as follows : hydraulic lifting-jacks (4 tons to 30 tons capacity), 11,650; malleable cast fittings for tubular-steel scaffolding, (2 in. and 3 in.), 245,000 ; water-valves, 53,000 ; concretemixers, 431 ; foot tire-pumps, 22,860; electric accessories (roses, tumbler switches, sockets, spindles, and straps), 965,000 ; cultivators, 1,734 ; vertical cross-tube boilers, 24; grain-crushers, 36; nail-pullers, 3,600; carpenters' cramps, 7,420; airline lubricators, 2,555; rat-traps, 1,200; centrifugal semi-rotary pumps, 800 ; milkingmachines, 50 ; and pasteurizers, 20. To ensure that munitions components for fuzes, bombs, and grenades complied with the rigid specifications in respect to tolerances, it was necessary for manufacturing machine-shops to be provided with production gauges and the Army Inspectors with inspection gauges. The Dominion Physical Laboratory was expanded and annexes were established in the four main centres, each of which was equipped with highly specialized machinery, thus enabling the many thousands of gauges of various types and precision tools to be manufactured, measured, and tested as required. Approximately 300 machine tools of the latest type were procured for war-production purposes, and the utilization of these, in addition to existing equipment on specialized munitions and allied stores production, has given an impetus in the metal industries to more efficient methods and technique. The change-over by the engineering industry from wartime to peacetime production has been facilitated by the use of machinery, tools and materials specially imported by the Government. Orders from relief organizations such as UNREA and the Netherlands East Indies have assisted in providing suitable work to industry to replace the war orders cancelled, and in negotiating such orders consideration was given to the use of materials from available stocks. Other material is being released for normal peacetime production. Orders already completed include 60,000 shovels, 2,000 blacksmiths' tongs, 5,000 spades, 160,000 hook bolts with washers, 11,440 cast-iron wadjans, 20,000 steel butt hinges, 20,000 single-furrow ploughs, 120,000 plastic dinner-plates, 15,000 frying-pans, 750 cultivators, 200 fertilizer-distributors, 10 hay-stackers, 15 potatoplanters, 100 federal disc harrows, and 5,000 powder-sprayers. Other orders are in the process of manufacture. During the period the United States Forces for the Pacific were located in New Zealand, large quantities of camp cooking and other miscellaneous equipment were supplied, such items as 1,000 hospitals beds, 1,600 oil-fired hot-water boilers, 20,000 jungle and other knives, 2,500,000 tent pins and poles, 1,160 oil-fired cooking-ranges, 190,000 canvas water-bags, 70,000 galvanized containers comprising buckets, garbage cans, &c., 3,000 Sibley stoves for tent heating, including 6 miles of flue piping. Other miscellaneous items too numerous to classify totalled 4,500,000. From the commencement of the mobilization of the Armed Forces in New Zealand, large quantities of miscellaneous general engineering manufactured stores and camp cooking and other equipment were supplied to the various training and defence points throughout the country. These items, which are too numerous to classify, include lines from hammock-rings and propellers to life-saving rafts for the Navy, soldering-irons to refrigerators for the Air Force, and cap badges to oil-fired cooking-ranges for the Army. Since the termination of hostilities the reconversion of the industry to peacetime production has proceeded, and the measure of success may be gauged by the employment position. Large and small organizations which were almost wholly engaged on war

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