The N.Z Mail PUBLISHED WEEKLY. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30, 1905. THE SHOPS ACT.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1747, 30 August 1905, Page 41

The N.Z Mail PUBLISHED WEEKLY. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30, 1905. THE SHOPS ACT.

It is safe to 1 say that there was never yet a commercial law which at its inception had not a temporarily detrimental effect on some person’s individual interests. When a new Act of parliament alters an established method of business the parties adversely affected cannot help regarding such Act with, more or less resentment. The sugar planters of Jamaica whose industry was ruined by the emancipation of their slaves could not be expected to have any love for the legislation which brought about that result. British shipowners have not yet learned to venerate the name of Plimsoll, and the large landowners of New Zealand are not profoundly grateful for the law which permits of the compulsory resumption of their estates. Volumes might be filled with similar illustrations, and leave many still to be mentioned. The Shops Act of last session is an instance in small of the same natural tendency. Traders had in the matter of business hours grown accustomed to a go-as-you-please system, and though the operation of recent labour laws had introduced conflicting factors into the matter, there was no common agreement as to what readjustment of hours would best meet the new conditions which had arisen. There was therefore nothing for it but fresh legislation, and Parliament made an honest attempt to hold the balance fairly between the employer and the employee while conserving the established interests of the trader large and small. The result pleased nobody, and ended in agitation and confusion. Defective though last year’s law certainly was, there is a possibility that if it had been steadily and consistently enforced from the beginning, the storm with which it was received would shortly have blown over. Economic usages in incidental matters soon adapt themselves to firmly enforced regulation, and there is no reasoh to suppose that the retail traders of New Zealand cities would have been more persistently recalcitrant than those of Melbourne and Brisbane. It is pretty safe to predict that the amended law of this session will tstill leave a number of shopkeepers with real or imaginary grievances. On the face of the subject there still remains the fact of the differential treatment of the small and the large retailers. The latter being compelled to close earlier than his business rival, who employs no assistance, will find in this fact cause for discontent. The reason for a distinction between the big man and the

small man lies on the surface. Increase of business done by the latter, up to the stage where assistance becomes essential, automatically deprives him of the privileges appertaining to singlehanded effort. There is a danger, however, that this result may be retarded by undue competition among small traders privileged to work long houi-s—a competition which will not only injuriously affect their own prospects, but will also tend to restrict the business of the larger man and limit his usefulness as an employer of labour. It is-to be hoped that this possibility will not be overlooked in the amended legislation. Another respect in which the law of last year was oppressive was in its undue interference with the opening hours of butchers and others, the peculiarity of whose trade necessitated an early start in the morning. The pharmaceutical chemist again is one whom the law should leave alone. Illness is not limited to times and seasons, and there should be constant opportunity for those who want medicines in haste to get them as early as possible. There are other shopkeepers,too', Avhose chief profit is won in the leisure hours of the people, and these deserve much latitude. We have great hope of seeing in the new measure an equitable treatment of every trade requiring special consideration.

There is, however, a wider view to be taken of differential legislation affecting the interests of the small man in preference to his more successful fellowtrader. While deserving every credit for its attempt to- deal with an admittedly difficult subject, the Legislature will ulimately find that in doing its best to conserve the interests of the small shopkeeper, it has been acting in vain opposition to a well-marked economic tendency of modern times. We refer to the growth of the giant trading concern, where goods are handled and distributed with a minimum of cost and a maximum of efficiency. The invention of machinery has bqcn the potent factor in producing this result. As in international relations, the days of the small State are numbered, so in the complex machinery of trade there is less and less room for the small man. Trusts, and combines, and gigantic proprietary concerns engineered by the acutest commerc'al men of the age, are giving the world an object-lesson on the possibilities of co-operation, and an increasing party throughout the world is raising the cry that what the individual can effect the community, the municipality, or the State can do at least as well; and it is argued that the people can serve its own needs without injustice, greed, or dishonesty. The working of State socialism is being watched with eagerness in many quarters. Whether the millennium to which its supporters look forward will ever arrive, is not by any means certain. Anyhow it will not arrive in our day; and meantime legislation must proceed along the line of least resistance.