The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Tuesday, August 16, 1887. CURTAIL THE CREDIT.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume I, Issue 28, 16 August 1887, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning.

Tuesday, August 16, 1887. CURTAIL THE CREDIT.

Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s, Thy God’s, and truth’s.

Auckland being in a very bad way from a financial point of view, the local merchants have said “come let us take counsel together,” and have met in solemn conclave to determine the cause of the present depression and the best means of ameliorating the present bad state of the Colony, Briefly put the result of their deliberations may be summed up in three words *• too much tick.”

And there is “too much tick” altogether. Big wholesale firms import too much, and must sell, Their bagmen bully, bounce, and blatherskite the retail man into buying more stock than he really wants, whereupon the retail man, in his turn cajoles his customers into buying more than they want, and, of course, on tick. The trader is not solely to be blamed for the blame attaches to all three men equally j to the wholesale man who wants to reduce his over imported stock, to the retail man who carlessly sells to “bad marks,” and to the customers, who, having credit too lavishly given them, indulge in luxuries beyond their means and fail to pay up when the dread day of reckoning comes round,

l» the wholesale men put in the peg a little, and by reducing their importations were able to see the 4th of the month without the timidity of spirit which so frequently affects them, why then the retail traders will soon understand that their bills must be religiously met and they in their turn will be chary of giving an exaggerated credit to customers whom they scarcely like to offend, but whose money they are not sure about getting. Now that we are getting down to the “bedrock ” of things and that the sham prosperity begot of borrowing and an oversanguine idea of the colony’s trade is over we are better able to estimate the real cause of the colony’s bad times.

Curtail the credit all round, stop borrowing from Home, stop over-importation, and you will stop long bills, too big stocks and “ too much tick.” Curtail the credit by all means, we shall be the better for it in the long run.