AMATEUR BUYING

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVI, Issue 23082, 22 December 1944, Page 7

AMATEUR BUYING

New Zealand’s Mistakes Commenting upon “amateur buying” by the New Zealand Government, particularly in relation to purchases by the Ministry of Supply of towels, cotton trouserings and denims, the “Mercantile Guardian,” a London export journal, states that these roughhouse methods, which commend themselves so little to the trade and ultimately the consuming public in New Zealand, fail also to elicit admiration in England. “The Dominion Government, as already known, placed orders with one Manchester firm for 2,000,000 yards of cotton trouserings and denims/’ states the journal. “Various houses were given the sponsorships, only to find that they had perforce to take the particular qualities for which the Government had placed orders, irrespective of whether the material formed a part of their regular business or not. It is not, therefore, surprising to learn that the honour has been in some cases declined. “It is understood the stuff is nevertheless to be shipped out to New Zealand, there to await a fate which doubtless will become known in time. In doing tilings in a big way with the aid of a big stick, big mistakes are always liable to happen, and they have not been avoided by the New Zealand Ministry of Supply. Mistakes can be minimised, but in order to reduce them one needs to go the right way about, and why departments should not. only departments know.”