MONEY TO SPEND

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 150, 22 December 1914, Page 8

MONEY TO SPEND

CHRISTMAS AND THE SHOPS "There will be no Christmas," said: the pessimists last year, because the strike had much disturbed trade. " There will be no Christmas this year" they said again, because the biggest war the world has ever known is raging. But the squeak of the penny trumpet is heard in the land and the rattle of twopenny tin drmus accompanies it. There have been heavy drafts made upon the private purse for the patriotic fund and the Belgian and other charitable funds, all the same a shilling or so will be found at the bottom of the pocket for something for the children, for one a doll, another a wheelbarrow, for older girls a' lace handkerchief or a pair of gloves, for brother Bob a pipe, for some other unexpectant beneficiary a box of cigars, and so the present giving and receiving — the one as delightful as the other — will go on, strike or no strike, war or no war. j This means much for the shopkeepers. A talk with some of them goes to show \ that things are far better than was expected. The orders received from whole* sale houses were certainly restricted, compared with what was formerly required at this time of the year; but even here an improvement has been most marked within the past three or four days. There was a lot of stock to be worked off, however, and this is being done; but all the same there is a fair run on merchants for season's lines. I There appeal's to be no anxiety as to the future. What that will be none can say. The war will have to be paid for, of course, no matter who wins, but nobody seems to be worrying about it just now, and consequently business in things that can be done without at a pinch is fairly brisk. This is especially true of millinery and costumes. The goods, of course, are here. They were all ordered and had arrived or rather had left Europo before the war broke out, and so they must be sold. It is far better for everyone all round, shopkeeper and customer, that such goods should be utilised rather than remain in the shop presses or on the shop shelves. Some difficulty is being experienced in eelhng toys and novelties branded "Made in Germany." These goods, 110 matter where they were made, are now Bntißh property, and the loss of their non-sale would fall not on the enemy but on our own people. Next year this may all be different, for the British Government has made and is making a determined effort to capture the great German toy trade. It has opened a bureau in London where buyers can meet manufacturers of all sorts of toys, English toys and toys that used to be imported from Germany and Austria-Hungary. There business is done by buyers for wholesale houses in Great Britain, and the Dominions have given thousands of pounds' worth of business to British manufacturers, trade that was almost the monopoly of German and Austrian firms. The toys cover a vast field from Noah's Arks to brass cannons, from Christmas stocking toy» to skittle pins — all English made. One thing in noticeable this Christmas (and it does not apply to hams), many luxuries are dearer than last Christmas. Ifc may or may not be all due to the war. but the fact remains that the purchasing power of the £1 is diminished. Nevertheless, people are spending the money on Christmas presents just the same as last year, and laying in stocks of good things for the table and the. sideboard to carry them over Christmas. When returns come to be made up at the end of the month it will probably be found that after all the 1914 Christmas was far brighter and merrier than it threatened to be in the first week of August of this year.