Sewing-Machines That

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Sewing-Machines That Won’t Sew

RUSTING away in local huts on Mangaia, Cook Islands, a num ber of British portable sewing machines lie idle, representing a loss of £l3 to each disillusioned purchaser.

The cost of a real Singer is around £3B here. So when an ad vertisement appeared in NZ papers, Islanders rushed the tiny portables that seemed the answer to their financial problem, and obtained the X machine.

It worked quite well for a while.

Then the machines refused to sew any further (they never had been any use with thick material such as khaki, etc.) Inspection of the item by local mechanics revealed no visible defect —but they just wouldn’t work. Those that quit, never did work again.

The machines, all accompanied by a 5-year guarantee of service, were manufactured by a British firm, which subsequently produced a superior model. Shortly after that, the firm went into liquida tion.

It seems unethical that a firm,

a British one at that, can foist useless machines onto the buying public and then shrug-off all re sponsibility, after “guaranteeing” the product for 5 years. Within one year of the grandiose publicity, the firm had suspended production!

A small and reliable but cheap portable sewing-machine would sell like hot cakes in Cl. Everybody needs one, but it takes a long time to earn £38.

Must we wait for the ingenious Hun, or the inventive Jap, to pro duce something our own factories could easily supply, if enterprising enough, for Pacific Islands markets?

E.G.

Stronger Sex Survive

A NATIVE canoe which had been given up as lost for more than a week was washed ashore on Tami Island, near Finschhafen New Guinea, mid-June.

The canoe left Lae, June 7, to gc to Busma, mid-way between Lae and Salamaua, with an elderly native man, his wife and a young girl on board.

Reports reaching Lae said only the two women survived and were then at Finschhafen Hospital. It is believed the man disappeared from the canoe when it was two days out from Lae.