Trust Hotels’ Experiment

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 21 July 1944, Page 2

Trust Hotels’ Experiment

The prohibition of tipping and “shouting,” and the absence of after-hours trading were features of the sale of liquor under trust control in Invercargill. which impressed the Minister of Works (Mr Semple) when he visited Southland recently, states the “Press.” “If I want to buy a pair of socks I don't have to buy half a dozen other fellows a pair of socks, too. and they feel under ro obligation to buy me any either.” said Mr Semple, in Christchurch when commenting on the abolition of shouting. Mr Semple said he was parliculai'ly interested in the Brown Owl, where liquor was sold in a restaurant. There a man. if he wished. could take his wife and have a glass of ale if he wanted it while she had a milk shake or cup of tea. “That is a big improvement on standing like a lot of calves round a milk trough trying to elbow one another out,” added Mr Semple. “In this way you can cut out perpendicular drinking.” The Minister said the trust had done very well, in a short space of time, and he had been favourably impressed with the conditions he had found at the two or three temporary hotels he hod visited. Market Gardeners’ Conference Market gardeners from all parts of New Zealand will meet in Wellington next week for the annual three-day conference of the Dominion Council of Commercial Gardeners. There are several remits on the operation of the Internal Marketing Division in its sellii.j of Government farms’ produce on the open market. One quotes an undertaking by the former Minister of Marketing. Mr Barclay, that such produce wMLjd not be sold in competition with giowers. Another remit asks that if this continues, a minimum price Oe fixed on all such produce to cover production costs and a profit margin. The Hawkes Bay branch, by remit, contends that in view of the great reduction of armec forces within the Dominion. the time is opportune for a corresponding reduction in the area of State vegetable-growing projects. Marlborough seeks a finish to the compe’ition of service vegetable projects, stating that growers are unable to sell their produce below production costs, and if service competition continues they will be seriously affected. The Hutt Valley branch requests by remit that as all growers must make income tax and other returns the Government likewise should give an account to the public. or Parliament, of all expenditure ol’ taxpayers’ money used in direct competition with private growers. Manawatu asks that the Department of Agriculture put into effect the Commercial Gardens Registration Act. 1943