FILM INQUIRY. YOUNG N.Z. CLUBS ARE BEING RUN AT A LOSS

Wanganui Chronicle, 27 May 1948, Page 5

FILM INQUIRY. YOUNG N.Z. CLUBS ARE BEING RUN AT A LOSS

CONFECTIONERS PERTURBED AT THEATRE MONOPOLY-

(P.A.) Wellington, May 26. The opinion that chains of theatres operating in New Zealand five nights or more a week should be nationalised, was expressed by Mr. H. A. Holmes, governing director of Gore Pictures, Ltd., giving evidence tonight before the Parliamentary Committee inquiring into the motion picture industry. He claimed that many exhibitors had gone bankrupt due to not having enough buying power to ensure them a good supply of good films for their shows, or any Government regulation to make them available. Mr. Holmes said if these chains of theatres were nationalised he would be prepared to hand over his theatres without taking any money out. charging 3 per cent, interest and 1 per cent repayment yearly. Alfred Flett, public relations officer for the Kerridge-Odeon Organisation, Auckland, said Young New Zealand Clubs were run at a considerable lass, without taking administrative expenses into account. There were 58 such clubs throughout the DominionIf any money were raised by club activities it was devoted first to child welfare in New Zealand and, in the event of any surplus, to child welfare overseas. Inspection by officers of the Education Department would be welcomed Cross-examined by Mr. R. Hardie Boys, counsel for the Crown assisting the Commission, witness said the clubs had a membership of approximately 36,000. In two years the loss on a magazine published for club members and clubs was £9OOO. To Mr. W. H. Fortune, witness said there had been no increase in total attendances at theatres since the introduction of the clubs, only a redistribution of attendances. CONFECTIONERY SHOPS Evidence was given by Mr. G. A. Turner, assistant secretary of the Wellington Employees’ Association, on behalf of the Wellington Small Shopkeepers’ Association, the members of which were principally engaged in the retail sale of confectionery and allied products. Members of the association, said Mr. Turner, were somewhat perturbed at the policy of theatre companies in their endeavour to obtain control of confectionery shops attached to their theatres, and also the sale of confectionery within theatres. They feared that, through the control of a large number of shops, such companies might, because of their influence as large buyers of confectionery, be able to command a greater share of allocations of confectionery than would be available to individual buyers and retailers, and that at least some protection was needed to safeguard the interests of an individual retailer who generally had no other source of income than that obtained by the sale of confectionery and allied products. The effects of such control of a large number of shops as envisaged by one company had already been felt by members of the association, who had noted that their quotas of confectionery from one source in particular had been reduced over the past year, while shops under the control of threatres obviously had been able to obtain large supplies of confectionery from this firm, and some with their own trade name on the boxes of confectionery. As far as could be ascertained there appeared to have been no alteration in quotas from other manufacturing sources of supply. Already, theatre companies had taken over from individual owners some theatre shops and had endeavoured to take over others, although in some cases they had been prevented from so doing under the Economic Stabilsiation Emergency Regulations, 1942.

Members of the association, added Mr. Turner, would have liked to have come before the committee and explain their views, but they were afraid to do so because of a fear of victimisation and the possibility of their supplies being further reduced.