TYRANNY OF FARTHING.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10825, 19 July 1913, Page 6

TYRANNY OF FARTHING.

MUCH LOVED BY WOMEN. Why do the farthing and halfpenny play so important a part in retail drapery transactions—and in more recent years even in men's dealings with the hosier and outfitter? Scarcely an article of feminine apparel can be found in any retail draper's shop window which has not a id or $d taoked on lo its price. All around one in a draper's shop there are examples of what Sir Walter Besant called "the inexorable law of elevenpence halfpenny." Everything is priced 2ijd, s|d. ll}d, Is 6sd, Is ll|d, 2s Ilia, and 60 on. , Many wholesale and. manufacturing drapers met in London recently, to discuss in solemn conclave this question of the importance of the farthing in regard to drapery prices. The following resolution was passed:— ''That the attention of textile manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers, and also of the public, be called to the evil of adopting a 6ot of popular selling prices (63d, 83d, Is 2s lid, etc.), to tho exclusion of intermediate ones (7id, 2s 3d, etc.), which, in the opinion of this association, is detrimental to all concerned, the designers, producers, sellers and wearers." Manufacturers contend that the system of so pricing goods _by retail drapers checks, enterprise and originality. ''We nave to produce," they complain, " only such goods as the retailer can offer at tho standards of price ho has adopted. " He wants goods that can be marked at figures a farthing or half-penny less than 6d, Is, 2s, 3s or 4s, and allow him his full margin of profit. " lie does not encourage the production of superior articles which should bo priced at, say, 7d, Is Id, or 2s 2d, though there must be thousands of the buying public who would welcome a superior article —in which better material and sound work are allied—at a few pence extra." The retail draper, however, does not think so, and his opinion must be respected, for he has wido experience of feminine likes and dislikes. A well-known draper in tho West End of London, said in defence of his system. . "It is our experience generally, m the drapery trade," ho said, " that most women greatly prefer a pair of gloves marked, say, Is 113 d, to a panpriced at 2s—not, mark you, because they consider tho 2s too much to pay, but simply because Is lljjd seems to them to be so much less, than 2s. " A woman buying an article for 5-jd or 11-Jd. and tendering 6d or Is in payment, is quite content to receive a r-acket of pins or needles or a |ljimble instead of the farthing change, and we, of course. manage to make a trifle on these small items, too; for we buy them ourselves in large quantities." Hosiers and outfitters have in later years also begun to adopt the drapers' system of prices, so far as the halfpenny is concerned.