LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 128, 1 June 1943, Page 4

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

SAVING POWER

Sir, —In order to conserve electricity why not close all shops at 8 o'clock on Friday nights for ■ the next three months? In these diays of coupons and rationed goods I cannot see how any retail shop could suffer by cutting out what is the bleakest and slackest shopping hour in the week.—l am, etc.,

E. C. RUSSELL,

"Citizen" criticises "the stubborn unwillingness of the mercantile community to co-operate for the public good" and cites, as an instance, the use of advertising signs up to the date when the ban became operative. A well-disposed citizen would not await that date before turning his out. A few signs were unlit, but a very much greater number was in full flare. "This should be an answer to those who contend that voluntary effort should in various matters be relied on instead of compulsion."

On the other hand, "Shopkeeper" complains that he was abruptly ordered some time after 4 o'clock on Friday to put his window lights out, though he was busy with a customer at the time. "If the authorities desire the co-opera-tion of business people they might take a little trouble to explain the maze of regulations; there is such a flood of orders and prohibitions these days that it is a wide awake job to keep pace with them. A small printed slip stating what lighting we can or cannot have would tell us where we stand, but I suppose it is a simpler matter for the authorities to wield the big stick and prosecute people. I have repeatedly noticed that whenever restrictions are imposed the long-suffering shopkeeper is the first one to suffer."

Another correspondent (Alice Ritchie) suggests that 10-watt bulbs should be made available as many passageways, bathrooms, and sculleries could be fitted with these; also that in apartment-houses each heater should be on a check meter as the apartmenthouse keeper otherwise has no means of seeing where extravagant use is going on.