The Hawera Star. MONDAY, JUNE 11, 1928. THE C.O.D. SYSTEM.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 11 June 1928, Page 6

The Hawera Star.

MONDAY, JUNE 11, 1928. THE C.O.D. SYSTEM.

Delivered every evening by 5 o clock lo Hawera. Manair.. Normanby. Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki. Kaponga, Alton, Hurleyville Patea. Waverlev. Mo_oia. Whakamara. Ohangai, Meremere. Prase* Eoad. and Ararata.

The 'criticism of the '‘cash, on delivery ’ ’ parcels post system made by the Hawera Chamber of Commerce last week was not the first protest that has been; made by New Zealand! traders in this c onnection. By this system a wholesaler or retailer carrying on business in England is given certain! advantages over the New Zealander in the latter ’is own field of trade. Many attempts have been made to bring the boomerang nature of this postal concession home to the authorities. The man in the street may believe, without giving very much thought to the; question, that there can be nothing but praise for a service which allows him to order goods by .mail from England and permits him to defer payment until the goods- are actually delivered to him here, but on examination the system is not entirely praiseworthy, even from the customer’s 1 point of view. It may be true that he is able, by using the facilities' provided by the Government for such overseas ordering, to save something 'on the purchase price of the article lie seeks, ib.ut it can be shown that there is another side to the picture which affects the individual indirectly, and the commercial heart of any small trading community directly. The injustice of the system has been attacked more .than once by Dominion traders, and there is ranch to be said for their point of view. They find! that the English merchant is brought into close competition wi th them through the channels opened by a State-owned service, and the New Zealanders contend that such a service, which is run: very largely on their own indirect contributions, should not be used to foster the competition of overseas rivals who make practically no contribution. The British merchant need have no capital invested in this country in order to take advantage of the system. He pays no local rates, and, in short, takes money out of the country without giving anything back except the goods supplied to the individual customer. It has to be admitted that the .trader established hero does a good deal more for his country than that, and his objection of the c.o.d. system, which allows an overseas rival to trade without ordinary business costs, is justified.- The average man who finds this system a convenience may dismiss lightly the suggestion that the competition thus offered from England causes .the diversion of any great sum of ■money from the businesses of Now Zealanders into the coffers of Englishmen, but ho would find! upon examination. that the position is more serious than he would suppose. The use of the system has been increasing rapidly. In 1924 3500 parcels were ordered and delivered through th e postal cash-on -delivery system, and their value was £12,000. In 1925 the total had risen to 9129 and' the value of the goods so imported was £31,952. The following year the figures were 13,799 parcels valued at £52,308 ,and last year there was another substantial gain, 27,379 orders going forward to England and £97,324 being paid to Home merchants upon delivery in this country. These figures cannot be treated lightly. If they were spread over the four metropolitan areas they would still be significant, but it lias to bo remembered that smaller provincial .towns have contributed their quota to this loy-no-means inconsiderable sum. Last year £2874 was sent out of the town of Hamilton for goods—most; of which, it is fair to assume, could .have been procured locally. Purchasers in Patmertson North who patronised the c.o.d. system in 392(5 numbered 400; in 3 927 their numbers had increased to 775, and the value of their purchases ha-cl risen, from £1450 to £2878. The increased popularity of the system during the past two trading years is exemplified even more strikingly in Oamnru, where the value of goods so imported rose from £561 in 3926 to £2044 in 1027. Other grounds of objection are raised by those Niew ■

Zealand traders who have interested themselves in this question, but the argument based on the amount of money lost to the local trader by the introduction of a sy.bem for which he helps to pay. and by which his rival benefits, is the most telling of them all.