STRATFORD’S TRADE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 19, 7 September 1911, Page 5

STRATFORD’S TRADE.

GROSS MISREPRESENTATION. (To the Editor “Stratford Post.”) Sir, —Mr Glover, M.P. recently said in the House, in referring to the Auckland wharf pilfering cases, that, a “lie has a thousand legs, and there’s no catching it.” Tho same may be said in reference to the statements made about the state of business in Stratford at the present time, and the prospects for the near future. Surely the individual ivho M r as interviewed by. your representative has some Broadway property to sell or lease, or possibly one of those iniquitous land jobbers;—didn’t one of our judges recently call them “parasites,” or “roaring lions”?—silvery tongued commission agents M-hose sole business is to boom, misrepresent, and mislead for the sake of their commission, and don’t care a dump what becomes of their victim. Mind you, sir, I don’t say they are all alike, as I believe that, some of them are as straight as it is possible to be in that line of business. Anyhow, the statements in your last night’s issue re the glou--iiig prosperity of the ‘tou-n are simply untruthful and misleading. Wo have had’ too much of that sort of thing already,. and anyone with any business thought about them at all, v jlist by a glance along our streets must sec that qyery line of business is very much overdone. I have had over ten years’ qf business experience in this town, and-I say without fear of contradiction that there was never a tive during the past ten years M-hen things

frero so slow and money so scarce as <nDw... t Jilvcry business man will.cndpfsoxny fitatemMfs. Within the past -18 months or so the business places have practically doubled. They must all get some share of what is being done, and although not remunerative to themselves, what little they do get is taken away from others, thus impoverishing what was formerly healthy living businesses, making them unsatisfactory to their proprietgood for the newcomers. In many cases it is only a question of who is strongest, and the fittest will survive, the weak one going under. Why are some of our prominent business men selling out? Simply because they can see into the future a little, and cry, “Icabod, the glory has departed, and I’ll go too.” The man in the distance, by the glowing accounts sent out from Stratford, believe it is a perfect Eldorado, and must, in the near future, be a second Chicago. This man soOh buys his experience and realises how he has been “had.” The same experience is applicable to our surrounding farmers. Prices of land have gope up beyond their capacity to give satisfactory return's; the man who has invested his hard savings with a hope of getting a fair living finds out . after paying interest, etc., that it’s all slogging and very little if any recompense, and a continuation of the same for years, he throws up the sponge, gets out, a sadder but a wiser man. This is the real secret of so many clearing sales and people leaving the district. The man who comes in his place is often worse conditioned. Very few of them have any money to spend except for the bare necessities of life, as they must live. Their cows may be doing well or otherwise, but their milk cheques mostly go to the dealer who has stocked their farm, and so the everlasting turmoil goes on, and instead of the business of the town being of a permanent nature it is simply a rope of sand and fluctuates like the weather. I am afraid this letter is rather long, but I think anyone with a grain of sense will say I have stated the facts in their true light and shown that as the old bumboat . woman in “Pinafore” sings, “things are not what they seem, skim milk masquerades as cream,” is quite true as regards this town.—l am, etc., ’ COMMONSENSE. [Our correspondent himself heads his letter “Gross Misrepresentation.” We allow that heading to stand as more nearly applying to the contents of his own letter than anything else, for, though the misrepresentation contained therein may not be wilful or intentional, it }s certainly there. Reference to the matter is made in our leading columns.—Ed. “Stratford Evening Post.”] - - -