The Christchurch Star THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1933. NEW LAMPS FOR OLD.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 956, 28 December 1933, Page 8

The Christchurch Star

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1933. NEW LAMPS FOR OLD.

PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd.

that have changed their ” Y coats are numerous enough in English to give a special significance to any word that begins, by modern usage, to return to its older meaning. Sucli a word is “ service.” To-day, in commercial parlance, it has become the handmaiden of goodwill, for it describes a new anxiety to please in the attitude of the merchant to his customers. Actually modern service merely puts into practice the ancient truth that good measure, pressed down, and shaken together and running over is the best builder of business. It is seen in every direction —in things great and small—in the motoring world in free air and free battery service; in book shops, in free writing rooms and stationery, and even the free filling of fountain pens; in newspaper offices, in free accident insurance; in the cities, in free transport to markets that lie off the beaten track; in the country, in free camping grounds for motorists. There is no “ catch ” about these and a hundred other free services. They are not a charge on the general body of customers, for if they were, those who offered them would soon be out of business in this highly competitive age. They are, in fact, a means by which goodwill is created and held on the give-and-it-shall-be-given-to-you principle. A HOLIDAY NERVE-CENTRE. THERE is no limit to the application of this new' spirit of service. The correspondent who complained yesterday that the Christchurch railway station was “ simply incapable of catering for the needs of a big holiday crowd ” might have conceived of something greater in a metropolitan railway station than a mere palatial showplace. What every city needs, at holiday times above alt, when normal business and shopping activities cease, is something of a holiday nerve centre, or travellers’ rendezvous and clearing-house. Under a sympathetic director and staff a new type of service station might come into being at railway termini—not merely a formal waiting room and inquiry office, but a place where city-wise men could advise and direct the holiday-maker or traveller, or even plan his itinerary for each succeeding stage of his journey; where friends could meet by accident or design in well furnished waiting rooms; where, in fact, every kind of service, short of providing tips for the races, might be offered to the town or country train traveller. How far these services might grow' in time it is difficult to say. The minding of children, the booking of hotel accommodation suitable to the traveller’s needs, and, above all, the linking up of railway and road services, for the picking up and setting down of travellers at their homes or elsewhere, are forms of service for which the railways will one day have specially trained staffs. There is an opportunity here for personal service that might set new standards of intimacy and understanding between the Railway Department and the community. TOO BIG A JOB. 'VA7’AU between Bolivia and ParaY ’ guay is of world interest chiefly in its hearing on the effectiveness of the outworn Monroe Doctrine, and the fact that the PanAmerican Conference has handed the Gran Chaco dispute back to the League of Nations is significant. Originally these two countries agreed to submit their dispute to the arbitration of the League, but later, and it is believed at the inspiration of those who wished to save the face of the United States, they asked that the League’s arbitration should be set aside in favour of an inquiry by the Argentine, Chile, Brazil and Peru. Now that the League has the matter in hand again this quarrel about the possession of the unknown reaches of the upper Chaco assumes a new international interest.