SHOP MONOPOLY

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 February 1947, Page 10

SHOP MONOPOLY

CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY’S EXPLANATION “NOT A STATE"CREATION” (P.A.) - WELLINGTON,' Feb. 12. On behalf of their members in the Epuni, Naenae and Taita State housing areas, the Directors of the Hutt Valley Consumers’ Co-operative Society, Ltd., to-day issued a denial of recent allegations that the Society is a “State-created monopoly.” The directors said that the publicity appearing in “supposedly responsible places” had been wilfully or carelessly a misrepresentation of the facts. ’ Householders’ Demand “We are not a monopoly in the frightening sense that private enterprise has caused this word to be regarded by the public,” the statement continues. “The Society is not in any way a Government creation. The Society was formed by 91 per cent, of the householders in the community, and 90 per cent, of the returned servicemen and the servicewomen. “This formation was voluntary This overwhelming majority for cooperative trading caused the Government, in 1945, to grant the Society the use, on ordinary business terms of the first block of shops planned by the Housing Construction Department in Naenae. The movement came from the people—not from the Government. “Monopoly Busters.” “In England, America, and Sweden (to name a few of the 40 countries in which consumer co-ops. serve some 80,000,000 members) co-opera-tives have proved to be trust or monopoly ‘busters’—not creators. The Government will let its shops in the State house areas on ordinary business terms to the Societies only if three-quarters of the people wish it. This gives private enterprise a three-to-one start. Surely, no organisation or individual can quibble with those odds, nor wish to dictate against the will of 75 per cent, of the residents, a majority the size of which is necessary in no other vote. There is no talk of exclusive rights in this trading. “Assertions have been made that the co-operative movement cannot stand on its own feet. This is not borne out by the fact that, after eight months’ trading, we are not only standing on our own feet, but are making considerable headway. Were this not a known fact, we submit, there would not have been such an outcry from those who see a possible source of further profit being withdrawn from their grasp.”