From 1920 to 1974, the Agents purchased £2,064m of supplies (Figure 5.1). At the start of the period, colonial clients were required to buy of all of their stores that were not manufactured or produced within their own colonies or in adjacent countries from the Agency. Over time, however, this requirement lapsed, and, by 1959, they were free to buy supplies themselves either direct from overseas manufacturers or from local merchants. The articles purchased by the Agents largely went to Africa, the Far East and the West Indies and Caribbean in 1936 and to Africa and the Far East in 1964 (Table 5.1, Appendix 4), and comprised engineering equipment, which in 1963 accounted for 48 per cent of orders, and a wide range of other goods, including cement, clothing and textiles, medical supplies, stamps and stationery. Clients ordered merchandise via indents, which varied in value from trifling sums to thousands of pounds and could contain a request for a single item or for many hundreds of articles. Depending on their contents, the indents were passed to either an Engineering Purchasing Department or a General Purchasing Department, where they were split into orders and sent, directly or after competitive tender, to manufacturers. To ensure that only quality products were dispatched, a large proportion of the orders were inspected after, and, in some cases, during production, and, to make sure that they arrived at their destination in good condition, some were also packed in the Agency's packing store.