King Country Chronicle Saturday, September 2, 1911. SHOP AT TE KUITI

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 392, 2 September 1911, Page 5

King Country Chronicle Saturday, September 2, 1911. SHOP AT TE KUITI

The publication of a Household Guide, supported purely by local storekepeers and professional men, and arranged to attract trade to Te Kuiti, is an event which may well serve as a tag upon which to hang a sermon. The Guide is oeing widely circulated over the lower King Country, and with its insistent motto "Shop at Te Kuiti" there can be little doubt it will do the town a power of good in every way. For there is no question but that thoughtless purchasing of household and other requirements in the large cities is injuring to a considerable extent the trade of this district. The public have it dinned into their ears that city stores offer better goods at lower prices, when the real truth is that the personal, individual attention given to customers in country towns enables suppliers to be furnished at equal quality and prices to those of the city stores. Unfortunately it has to be admitted that some of the worst offenders in this supporting local industries doctrine are traders themselves, We do not allude to Te Kuiti in these remarks, but we know other towns where the very men who are

crying out against residents shopping at the big centres are most guilty of that practice themselves. If a grocer gets his suits made with a local tailor and that tailor deals for groceries locally, the mutual trading is beneficial to both. If, on the other hand, the draper buys his piano from a wholesale house, and the local music man buys his Wife's hats in "town" the effect in both cases is locally disastrous. And it does not follow, either, that money is saved. Look at the question a little more minutely. Say our grocer friend gets his new suits from "town". He gets a smart cut, doubtless, and perhaps a novel pattern. And others see it and admire it and want one like it. The - tailor, on the other hand, is buying his groceries from a large town house, and whether he saves a few pence or not, he thinks he is, and a number of his friends do likewise. The general effect is disastrous Until the merchants themselves loyally support local trades it is little U3e asking ordinary customers to do more than they do themselves. Shop at Te Kuiti—support local industry —but let it take effect in the local dealers' heart first, and we have no doubt the general public will follow. Every pound spent in Te Kuiti means more facilities for settlers out-back, and if our settlers are loyal to their own district a really live body of local tradespeople will work to support their interests. Telephonic communication, for, example,may be improved and extended through a feeling of mutual trust. Metropolitan merchants are not going to fight the battles of settlers in the King Country and by supporting Te Kuiti tradespeople settlers will stimulate and encourage a spirt of reciprocity which is bound to have its marked influence for good in the future.