TEN YEARS AGO.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 157, 6 July 1939, Page 6

TEN YEARS AGO.

OPENED IN AUCKLAND.

SELF HF.LP CO-OP.'S RECORD. Havinjr just completed 70 years of trading In Auckland, Self tielp Cooperative. Limited, i< now celebrating it* first dpcade. It was in July, 105(0. that t)ii< Self Help opened three shop* in the city—one in Ponsonby Road, the second in Ethel Street and the third in Dominion Road. Since then, the company has established 53 stores in the province, of which 30 are in the city and suburbs of Auckland. Tn the 53 shops thev employ more than 300 employees. This year all the employees of the company in the Dominion have participated in a bonus amounting to £4000. The founder and managing director of tile company. Mr. Ben Sutherland. in a letter to the "Auckland Star," states that he hae consistently used the (taper f6r advertising purposes and expresses hie appreciation of the eooperation he has always received and the great assistance the paper has been in carrying the firm's advertising message to the hemes of the people i>l Auckland., .ji,, It wae btfek In 1922 that Mr. Sutherland, who had formerly been a railway employee, was struck by an klea. That Idea proved so sound that to-day the one store which he launched in Wellington has grown to 103 scattered all over New Zealand. The blue and gold frontages of the company's shops are known in scores of towns. Thousands of tone of household goods, both local and Imported, are passed over the counters every year and find their way into thousand'* of homes. The produce handled—if ite sources were provide an excellent lesson in geography and would take the inquirer from the farthest.north in the regions of the Arctic Circle down to Stewart Island. Practically every ship that comes lo the country has in ite holds goods intended for this giant distributing 'organisation. The steady advance of the company since Ite Inception U clear proof that Mr. Sutherland's idea was a good one and that he was aware of the value of a consistent evening newspaper advertising policy that told the people of the Dominion what he had to sell.