LIVE STOCK BUSINESS

Taranaki Daily News, 5 September 1932, Page 12

LIVE STOCK BUSINESS

CANVASSING TO CEASE.

AGREEMENT IN NORTH.

An agreement has been reached by stock auctioneering firms operating in North Auckland by which the canvassing of farmers for private sales of stock will cease. The new policy will come into operation at the end. of the month.

After remarking that under present circumstances the stock departments of large auctioneering and mercantile firms had been operating at a lo&s, the manager of a prominent firm of stock agents said that efforts had been made . to maintain outside staffs at the previous level, even though reductions had been made in office personnel. The position .had now become such that a reorganisation of outdoor staffs had become necessary, and an agreement had been reached by the firms concerned. Previously representatives of stock firms had travelled over the same ground in succession, and the small business they had been able to obtain was by no means sufficient to warrant the expense involved. Expensive and undue competition in obtaining private sales would now cease with the abolition of stock canvassers, although there was nothing to prevent farmers wishing to sell privately from approaching firms. During the past few months settlers had been almost continually interviewed by travelling representatives of stock firms, and many had regarded the visitors as a nuisance.

A consequence of the agreement would be that most farmers would offer their store and other stock at district sales by public auction, with the result that truer values would bo obtained and the market would be stabilised, to the benefit of both the stock firms and the individual farmer. The system of canvassing which had become so prevalent had been satisfactory neither to the firms employing the men, es some companies had been forced into th© practice against their wjll, nor to the farmer.