EARLY CLOSING

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 143, 18 June 1924, Page 6

EARLY CLOSING

SMALL TBADERS1 COMPLAINT "A CONCEJSSI9N TO MONOPOLY.". (BY TBLEGftAPH e'pECIaL 10 THE POET.) ' • , AUCiiLAI\ D, This Day.; .; Two months' experience' of the .new. regulations concerning '■the earlier, elos-: "•" ing of shops whose Ousmess is covered.' by the Retail- Shop. Aasistants'.^Award, nas provoked much complaint thrfcugh.Auckland' against the Arbitration Urarts1 decision.' Scores of small- traders, in and about the "city and suburbs assert' that the curtailment of shoriping ■•:' hoiirs in the evening "is another con-: cession, to monopoly and the big traders. „.-■ Investigation (reveals some- inter- 'v esting features in: the shopping trade-of ,-'" Auckland. ,/ Of these an outstanding point is the number of- 'small1 sho^ throughout the city, and suburbs,; each It. would seem having, to turn' over much " stuff to make.ianything like a substantial" !' : profit. 'Most ,of such: shops dp* not em-, ploy assistants; a( all, and quite frequent- ' ;ly represent a'hazardous enterprise.,-Here and there, howeyef,- a small shop is run by -a wife as.a means of supplementing the. industrial wages of file iusband. The •' great increase in this form of enterprise ' during recent years is'said.to have "hardened the heart'of Pharaoh" against what orthodox shopkeepers call unfair competition by free-lance traders, who formerly were .not 5 affected by the'shop assistants' _award. There 'is a great deal more complaint ..against closing at(8:30 1 o'clock on the late shopping night than against the 5.30-closing oh four evenings of each week. „ Suburban traders -say ' they liave^ been, severely hit by the cur-' tailment of the latie night shopping. Formerly they secured an appreciative measure of business from suburban, residents after they had visited the city on a' Friday evening. They invariably had • some purchases* ,J» niake oh returning home from town, and small traders, got : the benefit of that 'last minnte", trade. Under > the new rule it has ; mostly, been"kst. J•■' ; ■'■ „ 'r ..■;_;:,.'.' " :- ;'""■'*-■■-;'■.