Page 4 Advertisements Column 1

Evening Star, Issue 9387, 8 May 1894, Page 4

PUBLIC NOTICE. THE BOYCOTT. LEADING ARTICLE IN THE «LYTTELTON TIMES' OPTHUBSDAY, APRIL 26,1894. "Boycotting" cannot be defended as a highly moral proceeding, but circumstances may arise which would justify its employment as a means of coercing unreasonable or selfish people into a right line of action. To adopt such a course is not so much "to do evil tliat good may come " as it is to counteract one form of evil with another. The people of Dunedin are just now wrestling with the problem of whether the "boycott"canjustly be employed in defence of fairtrade profits and the "living wage" principle. One public body there has accepted a low tender from a firm which is alleged to pay less than standard wages, and another body has resolved to "boycott" the same firm by refusing to buy its products. Both these bodies cannot be right, but it is possible for both to be wrong. The general public is largely interested in the question at issue. Most people will doubtless sympathise with the effort to maintain a fair rate of wages; but would they approve of " boycotting " a tradesman who sold at "cutting" rates? The keen competition now going on in the retail trade in Dunedin has brought this question to the front in a practical shape. A firm of cash grocers there is being subjected to a "boycott" at the instance of competing tradespeople. It is alleged that flour is retailed at a price which leaves a profit of only Is 4d per ton. The pushing grocers, whose tactics havo given cheap food to tho people, have been told by a local miller that he will not supply them with Hour any longer, because other grocers have intimated that they will not deal with him if lie should continue to fulfil orders for the "cutting" people. Here we have combination assorting itself against free competition, and no one requires to be reminded of the dangers to be feared from combinations to maintainor increase the prices of the necessaries of life. Perhaps the safest guiding principle in dealing with these complicated questions is to fall back upon " the common sense of most" of those directly interested. The Dunedin grocery firm whose tactics arc objected to by their competitors in business have confidently appealed to the public for support in the struggle. " "We claim," they write to a local journal, " the right to sell flour or any other commodity at what price suits us. And further, if we choose to give this item away, are we to be interfered with in this manner ?" This is a plea for liberty which will not be made in vain to a free people with a keen eye to "bargains." In many trades particular lines of goods are occasionally retailed at under cost price for the sake of attracting business. There is nothing inherently wrong in that practice; and, so long as the goods are what they are represented to be, no injury is inflicted upon the public. The argument that a fair profit ought to be charged, in order to allow of the retailer making a decent living, is a plausible one, and has a certain resemblance to the reasoning in favor of a "living wage" for workers. But the two cases are radically different. In the case of workers there is a constant tendency for their remuneration to fall to the level of bare subsistence, and to counteract this combination is necessary. With retail tradespeople, on the other hand, the natural tendency is to make tho highest profit possible, and the law of competition operates to modify individual rapacity and to prevent the formation of a combination to impose upon tho conIn reference to above leading article, we wish to state that in the past we have always had a "living" profit. But as we are determined that we will not quietly submit to the dictates of the trade as to what prices we shall sell at we are prepared to run our business tor a time for the benefit of the Public. WARDKLL BROS. AND CO. SEE SHORT PRICE LIST ON Ist PAGE.