Goods and Gonce

NZ Truth, Issue 791, 1 January 1921, Page 4

Goods and Gonce

SO NEAR AND YET SO FAR

Many Trucks of Merchandise Held Up

(Fnom " Truth's" Christchurch Rep.)

It used to be a standing complaint one time that merchants and others could not get delivery of their goods at Christchurch or Lyttelton on account of shortage of rolling stock, and now it appears the trouble has been transferred to Christchurch, and merchants and others 'cannot get delivery of their goods ex* Christchurch railway yards for want of ready cash. Motor cars galore are lying alongside the ti-acks on the Linwood side of the Christchurch station, and have been there for weeks, if not months. From Colombo-street on towards the- Addington station almost as far as the eye can see, . merchandise of various descriptions is piled up. If you ask what is the cause of this outside storage and why the consigners don't shift, the goods, you are simply told that the banl^s are sitting tight on them.

It seems to point that a heavy slump has set m, or is about to- set m at an early date, and the auctioneer's hammer will decide who shall take delivery of the goo^s. No doubt some of the firms who have been existing on overdrafts, and very few are not, will put up their shutters if the banks remain adamant to their appeals. The small wool-grower is also m a bad way and has practically to give his wool away. ' Still a big per centage of those suffering at present from the action of private banking companies, m which may be included our semiGovernment Bank, are the ' very people who opposed the Idea of a State Bank.