PROTECTION PLEA

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19122, 17 September 1936, Page 5

PROTECTION PLEA

CHAIN STORE CONTROL NEARLY 10,000 RETAILERS PETITION CHALLENGED EVIDENCE AT INQUIRY (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. Another petition asking for legislative control of chain and department stores in New Zealand was before the Industries and Commerce Committee of the House of Representatives yesterday, when the inquiry into the trading of such stores was continued.

The petition is signed by 9480 retailers throughout New Zealand, and was supported by detailed evidence given by Mr. .A. D. Wylie, of Wellington-.

For th.e purpose of checking the activities of chain and department stores, he suggested the prohibition of direct trading between manufacturers and retailers, and the adoption of a double system of licensing.

In presenting the- petition, Mr. Wvlie said: ' l l wish to make it clear that we arc not demanding anything rut protection from cut-throat competition. We are appealing that wo may protect ourselves against the menace of trade wards with groat capitalised monopolies, which we cannot; possibly overthrow. Our petition is not a move to raise the retail selling prices of commodities. All we ask is that we -be granted the privilege to earn sufficient to live comfortably after paying reasonable wages to employees and other business disbursements. ’ ’ BONA FIDES QUERIED The bona tides of a large number of the 9480 signatures to the petition were challenged by Mr. G. G. G. Watson, who is appearing for a group of departmental stores. He said that a hurried' perusal of the petition .disclosed that several of the signatures were in the same hand-writing, and that scores and scores of Chinese and Hindus had signed their names without a tittle ot evidence to show that they understood what they were doing. The petition urges the Government to prevent departmental stores from carrying on more than one class of business under the "same roof, and to prevent overseas capital from entering into the New Zealand retail trade. Mr. Wylie told the committee that lie had travelled 16,000 miles to collect the signatures of retailers in every nook and corner from the North Cape to the Bluff. He had received little or no wages.

Mr. Watson said he would like to read a letter addressed to the chairman of the committee, Mr. J. Hodgens.

The chairman: I have not seen any letter. If it is addressed to me, how on earth did you get hold of it? (Laughter.) Mr. Watson explained that the letter had been given to him with instructions to read it at the inquiry and then to hand it to the chairman.. It was from five manufacturing and retailing concerns, who alleged that their signatures had been obtained by misrepresentation. MISREPRESENTATION ALLEGED The letter, which was read by Mr. Watson and put in, was as follows: “We, the undersigned, desire to dissociate ourselves from the petition, promoted by the Massed Retail Traders' Political Association, on the ground that, our signatures thereto were obtained by misrepresentation, in that we were assured of the intention of the petition being designed only for the regulation of chain store businesses as distinct from that of ordinary departmental establishments.” The letter was signed by Brown, Ewing and Company, Limited, the Drapery and General Importing Company of New Zealand, Limited. Wolfenden and Russell, Arthur Barnett Limited, and Drapery Supplies Association, Limited. Mr. Watson said he would suggest that the committee should carefully scrutinise the petition. During the short time he had had to go through it, he had noticed several signatures purporting to he those of Chinese, but obviously written by a European. A number of Chinese and Hindu fruiterers had attached their names to the petition, although how Chinese and Hindu fruiterers were at all concerned in the inquiry he was at a loss to understand. He ventured the opinion that if the signatures of only bona fide retailers were taken into account, the number remaining would be very small indeed. Mr. Wylie said that the petition was the largest ever presented to the New Zealand (Parliament by the business community, at was a fact that “four or five so-called big business men” who had signed the document had asked subsequently for the removal of their names. The petition, however, had nothing whatever to do with the organisation known as the Massed Retail Traders’ Political Association. It was ridiculous to suggest that any of those who had signed their names did not understand the meaning of the document when the wording consisted of only a few lines.