EARLY CLOSING AND MR FLAVELL’S MANIFESTO.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 9089, 28 April 1890, Page 3

EARLY CLOSING AND MR FLAVELL’S MANIFESTO.

TO THE EDITOR. Sib, —I have j ust read the Rev Mr PJavell’s latest contribution to the early closing literature, appearing in your columns this morning, which it is impossible to allow to go unanswered. I had cherished the idea chat my previous letter would have been the last 1 should have required to send you on this subject, but additional and renewed attacks demand additional and renewed defences. Now, in speaking of Mr Flavell, I believe myself to be criticising a truly sincere and devout servant of God, a man with a large heart and kindly disposition, who is justly beloved and honoured by bis congregation, as well as by everyone who knows him; but thej best of men may bo mistaken in their views and be liaule to form erroneous opinions, and it is because I believe Mr Flavell to be still unaware of the real and cruel hardship that must fall upon many that I essay once more to put my views before the public. At the same time I emphatically reiterate that I do noc believe that, personally, Mr Flavell would wish harm to a mouse, far less do anything that ho knew would ruin a small shopkeeper.

Mr Flavell’s idea is that i£ universal closing at an early hour be adopted, that the game volume of business in the aggregate will be done, only done in a shorter time, and that all will bo on the same level and stand the same chance of doing business as before ; but that is just exactly where the reverend gentleman, to my idea (and I ought to know something about it), is entirely wrong. During the day the small shops arc handicapped so heavily by the additional attractions of the la.rge shops carrying big stocks that the inclination of the public is drawn irresistibly to the large establishments, and it is only after they are closed up at 6 p.m. that the small shops get a chance. It must, therefore, be patent to all that if the Small shops were shut up at ti p.m. also, that then those who would have shopped in the evenings and spent their money in the small shops, being compelled to wait till the next morning, would gravitate towards the big shops as certain as the needle to the polo. Now seeing such is the case, how can one possibly argue that the effect of the early closing will not be largely to reduce the turn-over of the small shops, which would spell certain bankruptcy in the near future ? Then the dismal sight would be presented of rows of small shops ticketed “To Let,” followed as a natural course by a big fall in the value of city freeholds, and last scene of all the big shops would get their rents largely reduced because there were so many empty places in the town. Early closing is like the compensation balance of a watch, which being made of two metals, one of which contracts while the other expands, and vice versa , according as the temperature is hot or cold, so it is ia the warm glow of the evening under the gas light; the late shopping public are accommodated, ■ and the takings of the industrious small shopkeeper expand. But under the chilly blast and icy restrictions of the early closing programme, the big monopolist swells and expands, while the small, struggling men must shrivel up and finally disappear. As this, then, is the sure and only outcome, I can only ask is it “a consummation so devoutly to be wished?"—l am, Ac., STEPHEN POWELL. Christchurch, April 115.