SADDLERY TRADE

Taranaki Daily News, 19 February 1938, Page 8

SADDLERY TRADE

PROBLEM OF COMPETITION UNFAIRNESS ALLEGED Saddlers could still live if they were allowed to have the saddlery trade to themselves, but it was unfair competition that was putting the finishing blow on the business, stated a saddler ' in a Taranaki country town in conversation with a Daily News representative yesterday. He fully agreed with the article that appeared in the Daily News recently in which it was stated that saddlery, once an important trade throughout the country, had declined almost to the point of extinction, due to the advance made by motor transport and the lack of interest now taken in horses. He had started to learn the trade as a boy 43 years ago and had continued at it ever since, continued the saddler. He had seen the time when the trade was in its prime and when every farmer had his waggon horses and his gig or buggy horses equipped with harness in which they took a pride, and he had noted the swing over to motor traction with regret. He did not think that there would be any decided swing back to horses. The saddler was definitely of the opinion that there would still be plenty of work to enable a saddler in a country town to make a good living catering for the requirements of the farmers with horses in his own district, provided that the trade, which was legitimately his was left to him. There was, however, so much what he considered unfair competition from businesses handling saddlery lines that did not depend on that branch of their trade for a living that the legitimate saddler, who had devoted all his life to the trade, would probably be forced out of business.