RETAIL TRADES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17608, 26 October 1931, Page 10

RETAIL TRADES

MUJ-TIPf.? DEFECT INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL CHANGES OXFORD, Aug. 25. Mr. Frank Chitham, of Harrods, Ltd., speaking at the summer school of the Drapers’ Chamber of Trade at Oxford to-day, said that the most striking change since the war had booh 'the improvement in the standard of life of the working classes. Not .only, were people better clothed than formerly, but they were more fashionably clothed. More money'was being spent in.the home, and the growth of the practice of buying furniture on the hire-purchase system was largely due to the more confident view, of the future which a higher income suggested. Much more money whs being spent on amusements, and the cinema and the motor-coach depended for their financial success mainly bn the working classes.

Side by side with this state of affairs there was a decrease in the incomes of the middle and upper classes. If it could bo assumed that this was temporary, that the period of high taxation was passing and that greater prosperity -would return to the middle classes, there would he some ground for hope. But all the evidence pointed the other way.' Far from taxation ' being 1 reduced there was every prospect'‘of l it being increased, and it was therefore a matter for- the serious consideration of those engaged in the better class trades how far they could modify their business to meet the decreased speitding power of: their customers.' I' ‘ ' GROWTH OF GO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT’!' Dealing with the menace to the private trader of co-operative societies arid multiple .stores, Mr. Chitham said: “Although the number of co-oporativV-societies has shown a steady 'decline during the last few years, owing to the policy of amalgamation, that must hot be taken to show any-slowing up of the movement.- Tho : membership of the co-operative societies is 'nbAv ovrif (1,000,(K)O, an increase in the- last 10 years of 34 per cent. The freedom of co-operative societies from taxation is strongly reseiit'ed 'by our trade generally.’’ ' Discussing what forms of retail distribution Would most successfully survive this period, in view of the fact that there was less'money to be spent and more shops among which it had to be divided, Mr. Chitham said that the multiple shops, the 1 -fixed price stores, and the, co-operative * societies would successfully hold their own and 'would in all I ''probability increase their share of the total of retail Guide.’ The multiple Shops controlled 15 per ccnf. arid the cooperative'societies 12 per cent. Of tliri total trade of"the country', .which- si)owed how extremely formidable ' they had' become to* the* "retail trader. There appeared to be no reason why retail traders should not form themselves into voluntary groups for the purchase of merchandise of - those kinds 1 where competition was most keenly felt from the fixed price stores. The present depression' would'hot last for over; this country Would emerge from'the economic - cVisis'as it' 1 ’ had emerged from 1 those that’ 'll ad ■preceded it' aitd at’ r least' 1 ah' fiuceess'ffil ris" any other eountfyV'' Wh'dn 1 the 5 wheels 1 of industry were once more ’running at full speed, and prosperity made its Welcome I ,reappearance, retail distribution -'Would once more come into its own. v .