OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 July 1939, Page 3

OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

REGULATIONS & SMALL SHOPS (To the Editor.) Sir, —Writing, as only one of the indignant small business people of Masterton, I would like to register my protest against the treatment meted out to us by the dictator-like inspectors of factories and their employers. The public has no idea of the regulations and red tape with which we are bound to a much greater extent than are the larger concerns run by large wholesale firms. There is a movement going on at the present time which apparently aims at keeping all small shops and dairies from keeping even odds and ends of grocery lines, while the chain stores and semi-wholesale shops are in no way prevented from keeping our lines. They compete with the small shops and attempt to cut the prices to a level where the small shopkeeper would be squeezed out altogether if he did not retaliate by keeping some of the grocer’s lines. We are told that if we have a few odd groceries on the premises we must close our entire shops at 5.30 p.m., even if the groceries are shut away at that time, or alternatively we can spend anything up to £2OO having our shops made into two separate shops. Any one of us who deals in fruit or confectionery knows that a large portion of it is sold during the evening, yet we must close our shops and leave the evening trade to our Chinese friends in the main street.

This injustice does not concern only the small shops and dairies as regards the unfair competition of the larger shops. In at least one part of the town we see a butcher struggling to pay his way (and he doesn't sell groceries) and right next door the chain stores window is decorated with sausages, saveloys and ham, etc. —everything but the actual bullock. When the Government authorities commence at the other end and prevent the large grocers’ shops from becoming fruit, cake and butchers' shops, the smaller fruit and cake shops and dairies will be able to eke out an existence without the aid of grocery sales. —I am, etc., DISGUSTED. Masterton, July 12.