"MORE PUNCH"

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 116, 19 May 1941, Page 8

"MORE PUNCH"

RETAILERS UNITED

TO SPEAK WITH ONE VOICE

"There can be no doubt as to the desire of retailers to give their needs more ' publicity and more 'punch' through unity," states the official organ of the New Zealand Federation of Drapers. Clothiers, and Boot Retailers. "We have often before drawn the parallel between the unity of trades unions and that of the employers, and now the necessity of presenting a united front has been made more urgent by the peculiar conditions forced on the country because of the war. That is not to say that the war effort is to be hampered in any way because it might interfere with the interests of retailers. It simply means that an important section of the community will be in the position of being able to say with a collective voice that no restrictions that are not essential to the war effort will be imposed on it."

Particular trade interests, states the journal, would be free as at present, but it was hoped to set up a "united front" of retailers, acting with the utmost determination and enthusiasm in the forcible expression of their grievances.

As to price-fixing, tt had been decided that those in close touch with the trade should be in a position to j*ive valuable technical advice to the Price Tribunal and thus prevent any undue hardship being imposed on any section of the retail trade. "Very often arbitrary decisions are made by a body unaware of the problems of retailers, and it is certain that justice would be done and general satisfaction obtained if the problems were first sifted through a body conversant with the special conditions obtaining."