Truth VICE-REGAL PATRONAGE

NZ Truth, Issue 119, 28 September 1907, Page 4

Truth

VICE-REGAL PATRONAGE

Published Every Satubday Morning at ltjke's Lane (off mannebsstbeeit), Wellington, N.Z. SUBSCBIPTION (IN ADVANCE), 13S, PEE ANNUM.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1907

AND DIRTY DUNS.

It is not often that measures of usefulness emanate froni the Legislative Council, hut still that body of political gone-bungs, or dead-beats, must occasionally do something to show that they- are still m the political game. Last week a measure was brought to light m the political cemetery which, if carried through, as iff ought to be, will come down hard and strong on a system of petty fraud and humbug that wants suppressing badly. jN'ow, it's a custom, and a dirty, liard-up custom, too, m this and other places for any sugarsanding and swindling grocer, or car-case-hawking and hacking butcher, short weight bread purveyor or talkative barber, whose razors and scissors and clippers are vehicles of disease, to hang out some sort of shingle that they are under the . patron•age of the Governor or any member of the vice-regal crew. OI course, to be under the patronage of a Governor is not the soundest or safest guarantee that the public will get a fair deal. Anyhow, it reads nice and makes a grocer or a butcher or a baker or a barber look eminently respectable m the eyes of customers and would-be customers, and m this little loyal, lick-spittle world of ours, to be shaved by a razor that has probably wandered over the "moony" dial of a Governor is to some a sort of special honor, while, to be served with sugar and salt and bread and meat by the same hand that grabs, or is alleged to grab, the coin of a Governor, is to place some folk m the seventh heaven of delight. One cannot wander through any of New Zealand's chief centres without being struck with the legend "Under ViceRegal Patronage," and it is about a million to one that vice-regality knows nothing of the humbugs, who only put the shingle up to capture trade from the other chap who is honest and who. might possibly, find it more profitable not to be patronised by Vice-regality. Talking of ViceRegality reminds "Truth," too, that very often the said representative of our dearly beloved King Edward VII. is not the best paying mark m the world. We need not seek very far for a stingy, half-penny, haggling Governor m New Zealand. Governor Plunket might pay his debts, and i 'Truth" is not to betaken to infer that he does ' not ; only there are wharf-laborers and other hard-work-ing men and women m the land who ipay up with more promptitude and with less murmuring. Moreover, we do know Governors who were Scotch, and the Scotch are proverbially stin|gy, not that stinginess is a vice, ! though, but some of these Scotch 'Governors have been stingier than the average stingy Scotchman generally is, and the result is that tradesmen, when it. came to a settlement, very often found themselves m a pickle. Bein?; under Vice-Regal patronage it did not pay to fall out with "Gurvyment 'Ouse " the advertisement of being a purveyor of some sort of commodity or other was good for trade, so it was just as well to be beaten down by a stingy Governor or else lose the advertisement. But ViceRegality doesn't patronise everybody and the fact that this tradesman or that announces that he is patronised by Baron Lee or Plunket, or Guinness' stout, or whatever he is, is just a little humbugging device designed to capture trade, and the measure introduced m the Legislative Council to make this sort of thing an offence ought to be carried into law and given prompt effect. There are other things this measure proposes to sit on heavily, all aiming at hOnesty m trade, but one thing that "Truth" hails with decent and decorous delight is the proposal. to make the imitation of Court documents an offence. This paper dealt with a matter of this nature at Christchurch quite recently, where some sort of a jbum debt-collecting concern, which savored of fraud and humbug, was dragged into daylight and duly dissected. This affects those dirty, ' sneaking, doorstep-sitting duns styled "Deby-Collecting Agencies," which cleverly imitate .Court documents when engaged m the hard task of drawing money out of debtors. These sort of things frighten some people, and that sort of frightening ought not to be permitted. Debt-collecting agencies are generally run by people who are stones by nature and from which blood can't be had. They owe everybody and pay nobody, but make an art of collecting debts, and the methods employed by them are real, right-down dirty and despicable. They almost forge Court documents, which ought to be regarded as contempt of Court, but it is not. The use of these documents by really unscrupulous people ought to be made an offence, because if money is sought to be recovered there is a proper mode for its collection, and the procedure of imitating a Court order is nothing short of forgery. The measure emanating from the Legislative Council proposes to make this sort of thing an offence, and therefore "Truth" says some good does occasionally come from the Legislative Council. If the measure quoted ..becomes law, this paper might begin to think that the Legislative Council is not asleep all the time.