WORLD TRADE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3809, 16 September 1936, Page 2

WORLD TRADE

“I believe thta the greatest contribution which could be made to the problem by the Government is a determined effort to improve the efficiency of the distributive system,” said Mr Mabane, M.P., in a recent House of Commons debate. “It is astonishing to contemplate the extent to which the distributive process has been neglected by Governments. “This is a great problem of organisation, demanding investigation, careful, study and ultimate action. “The real problem with which we are faced is the cost of bringing foodstuffs from their point of origin to the table of the consumer. What is that cost? The answer is that no one knows.

“I think it incredible that, faced with this problem, we should have to say in this House that no one in the Government knows officially the cost of bringing foodstuffs from their point o£ origin to the table of the consumer. It is an enormous problem. "Distribution is the largest industry in the country. It employs 2,000,000 people and lias a turnover of £2,000,000,000 a year. I say, definitely and deliberately, that there is not a Minister 011 the Treasury Bench whose department knows officially any single fact worth knowing about the distributive industry. Statistically speaking, the distributive industry is in the Dark Ages. “I asked the Minister of Agriculture—what is the average retail gross profit on the sale of milk, and the answer was that the information is not available. I asked what is the average gross profit on the sale of foodstuffs, and the answer was tlie information is not available. You may ask any Government Department for important facts about the distributive industry, and the answer, I am afraid, will be that tlie information is not available. “What is the good of Ministers or any others saying that the major economic problem to-day is not production for distribution, when, at the same time, we have to admit that we do not know the facts about distribution? It seems ridiculous. “Some retail distributors have tried; on a voluntary basis, to collect information about the distributive process, but the area covered by them is very limited. It is important that we should now make a serious attack on the problem of distribution. If we were to investigate It, I believe it would be found possible to inaugurate a great area of progress and development in a whole distributive process, that would produce economies resulting in a decline of not less than 10 per cent in the average price of foodstuffs. If we could achieve such an an average we would have substantially destroyed a large part of the problem of malnutrition. "The United States has recently had a census of distribution, and it has also been done in Canada. The value of such a census would be inestimable. It would make possible economies which would result in a reduction of nearly every one of the important foodstuffs concerned in this problem. "Think of the things that we could 60 if we had the necessary information. We could prevent overlapping, we could arrange the proper distribution of retail outlets, and, even more important, we should know what we do not know now—the most efficient method of distribution. “Not one of us can tell at present whether it is more efficient to distribute, thinking only of the retail process, by chain stores, departmental stores, the one man shop or the cooperative societies. No one knows whether it is better to serve the shop directly from the producer or by means of the wholesaler. I believe that if we knew these facts we should be on the way to that reduction of cost which is so important. If we organised distribution I believe that half the difficulties at present involved in the organisation of production would disappear.”