“ TAILOR MADE.”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19136, 2 April 1924, Page 8

“ TAILOR MADE.”

PROSECUTIONS THREATENED. MINISTER HINTS AT LEGISLATION. THE RIGHT TO A CHEAP SUIT. (Faoii Oun Own (Jokbespondent.) WELLINGTON, April 1. Another and more practical stage has been reached in the controversy regarding the sale of suits of clothes advertised as “tailor-made,” widen tailors and the union of their employees regard as an imposition on customers who have no apparent sense of the value of the goods they aro purchasing. Recently a deputation comprising delegates of the Tailoring Trades Unions of the dominion waited on the Minister of Labour at the time of their annual conference complaining about the action of certain turns advertising and labelling as “tailormade” clothes whith were really made in whole or in part at the factory. To-day the master tailors and the Tailors’ onion asked the Minister to take steps to check the practice by law. The tacts as set out by the previous deputation are already well known. They were traversed again by yesterday’s deputation from the particular viewpoint of the parties attending. The president of the Wellington Union (Mr C. Fadyean) said that the subject had engaged attention from the union and the master tailors in various centres of the dominion, and it was unanimously affirmed that suits of clothes were being sold which were not what they purported to be. Work that was customarily done by a tailor’s hands was being done by machines. The speaker admitted in reply to a question by Mr Anderson that machines were used in tailoring establishments, but the finished product was the genuine “tailor-made” article, and was recognised as such by customers. The Minister: If I go into one of these shops complained of and ask for a “tailormade” suit, will I get a ‘‘machine-made” suit? Is it mere hearsay or is it within your knowledge ? Mr Fadyean: It is within our.knowledge, and that is why we are here to-day. More publicity, he added, was needed to assure the customer that ho was being imposed on. There was no desire to prevent people from getting cheap suits, but the deception should be checked in the public interest. It was unfair, not onlv to , the man in the street, but to the tailors who adhered to the award of the Arbitration Court. The Minister: You want the man in the street to know what he is actually buying. The award 'average, said the Minister, for payment for) a tailor-made garment was 50s, and for a machine-made 7s 6d. The president of the Master Tailors (Mr D. Milligan) reviewed the system pointing out that the a#hrd was being flagrantly broken nearly every day all over the dominion. He instanced cases where a chalk line on a partition separated employees working under the ward and factory rates. The Minister: Can you, supply mo privately'with the names of some of these people ? Mr Milligan: I think I can. The Minister: Well, we shall have to got the inspector to make inquiries with a view to prosecuting. To a suggestion that legislation might be framed, the Minister, replied that further information would be necessary before such a course was considered. “Boiled down,” said the Minister, “it means that the customer should receive the actual article the salesman purports it to be. It might be difficult to enforce, and it is certainly not desired that there should be any interference with the right to purchase a cheap suit. However, both the tailors and the factories will be consulted before any legislation is drafted. As long as the general public is protected I see no objection.” The Minister added that he had been advised of similar breaches in regard to footwear, and had instructed the inspectors to watch for this class of offence and to institute proceedings.