Panic Buying

Southland Times, Issue 24765, 9 June 1942, Page 4

Panic Buying

ON SATURDAY morning the bush telegraph was suddenly active in Invercargill. With mysterious celerity a rumour flew around the city that there was to be a shortage, and probably a rationing, of soaps and cosmetics. Hundreds of persons, men as well as women, besieged the shops, buying extravagantly, and carrying off large quantities of goods. At the time, no doubt, they felt the satisfaction of the chase which seems to attend these shopping raids. Now that the bush telegraph is known to have misled them, they may regret their hasty action: some of them may even feel a little ashamed. Panic buying is foolish buying. It is also selfish buying. A few cakes of soap stored in a cupboard may postpone a personal shortage, if the shortage is

inevitable. But in the meantime it may impose an immediate and unnecessary shortage on those who do not indulge in hoarding. As it happens, no soap famine is anticipated. Even cosmetics, which require a certain quantity of imported materials for their manufacture, are not expected to be in short supply. And in any case, as a chemist has pointed out, they do not improve by keeping.

Possibly there are few persons who have not hoarded something—even if it is only two or three packets of safety razor blades. There is always a temptation, in days of scarcity, to buy for future requirements. But the chronic hoarders, the men and women who buy wildly, now of this line and now of that, are public nuisances. They increase the difficulties of shopkeepers and of all reasonable people. By raiding a limited market they create an entirely artificial shortage. And they penalize the large numbers of persons who have neither the time nor the money which will allow them to cruise hungrily around the shops. In war time there is need for self-discipline as well as selfsacrifice. The hoarder is not a true patriot, for he is striving to make his own life easier at the expense of someone else. War is not an ordeal that should be slipped through as easily as possible. It is a giant effort which must be faced and shared. The burdens may be heavy; but they should be spread evenly across the community. Rationing is an attempt to protect the consumer by placing restrictions on individual buying. Although they are not onerous or unfair restrictions, no one wants to see them extended. Yet those who try to anticipate and circumvent the next extension of the system are doing their best to increase the tyranny of the coupons. Next time the rumour reaches them they should do what they are supposed to do in all invasions—stay at home.