Christmas Stockings

A gossamer Christmas vision tantalized Canadian women. Real full-fashioned silk stockings, said Ottawa newspapers, might be on the store shelves before Christmas. A shipment of silk hose was coming from Brazil. But the stockings would be expensive, could not be sold unless Canada's tough Price Controller Donald Gordon gave permission to lift the price ceiling.

Price Boss Gordon, easily aroused by any threat of higher prices, reacted characteristically. Said he: ". . . We are not going to be stampeded. . . ." The price of these stockings would be "fantastic." Anyway they are made with "silk obtained from Japan."

The Brazilian Embassy at Ottawa sharply corrected him: "Mr. Gordon has been misinformed. Brazil is now the third largest producer of silk in the world, and, as is the case of Canada, Brazil has had no commercial relations with Japan since Pearl Harbor."

But Mr. Gordon, clearly wrong about the source of Brazil's silk, did not intend to yield an inch on prices. Freight, duty and exchange taxes would make the price of Brazilian stockings, which sell in Rio for the equivalent of $2.50 a pair, from $4 to $5.50 a pair in Canada. All that the price controller was prepared to allow Ottawa retailers was $1.25 to $1.95 a pair, the price of stockings of similar quality in 1941.

Canadian women would hang up no Brazilian silk stockings this Christmas.

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