civilians and the Services has yet been made. There will, in addition, be a further deficit each quarter in offal, the amount of which is not yet known. The production of wooden-soled footwear is being pushed on as fast as possible, but cannot be counted on to yield more than the equivalent of 800 tons of bend leather in the third and 1,000 tons in the fourth quarter. 6. In view of this most critical situation and of the vital need to keep the people shod, especially the children and the war workers, I ask my colleagues to agree to the following measures:(a) The continuance of the highest possible priority for shipments of hides and leather, which fortunately form only a very small fraction of our total imports, and the diversion to the Plate route of sufficient shipping to lift all available supplies; (b) urgent representations to the Americans for a larger share of the total supply of hides, particularly having regard to their substantially higher civilian ration; (c) the requisitioning for our own civilians of finished leather from the U.