SCHOOL REQUISITES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 20 April 1922, Page 7

SCHOOL REQUISITES.

NEW ZEALAND PROPOSAL CRI-

TICISM) IN LONDOiN

The London Bookseller is very; much, annoyed at learning that the New Zealand Ministry of. JMiueatioii is attempting to supply school books and requisites at cost price direct to parents and schools, thus inevitably eliminating, as far as schools are concerned, the bookseiiers_ m the various areas and districts

involved. "If this policy is allowed to prevail," says the commentator, "it is sufficiently clear that, at least as regards educational books, the unfortuate bookseller will find his occupation gone, and may at once proceed to put up his shutters. The bookseller, in common with other business men in the

community, has to pay his share of the taxation, and it is refined cruelty to use some of his contributions to the common fund of the nation to. put him out or business and very seriously endanger his business prosperity. The whole principle , of municipal and Government trading is undesirable for this main reason, for if it is to be- admitted with respect to schoolboys' books, why not allow it with regard to their boots, then clothing, or any other necessary that they must need? The only way of safety is to stop all such attempts, at the begin- i ning, and we hope that the booksellers I of New Zealand, who are vigorously opposing this undesirable new departure, will persist in their opposition until they are able to carry their point and to j

prevent all such municipal or Government trading, at least" as far as books and other such school requisites- are* concerned. In this laudable endeavour they should receive the enthusiastic support of the whole trading community, who should remember that if this obnoxious practice is allowed to find a permanent footing there is every danger jf its wider extension to the purveyors of other commodities." The idea is spreading to F'v-th Africa, and' the Bookseller concludes: "If these unfair attempts to poach on the legitimate preserves of the bookselling confraternity are not stooped at once, the results may not improbably be very serious and" unpleasant."