IS SHOPPING IMMORAL?

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIV, Issue VIII, 24 February 1900, Page 364

IS SHOPPING IMMORAL?

Airs Enid Widdrington, in the “New York Herald,” writes some plain words on immorality in shopping, from which we make the following extracts:— ONE OF THE CURSES OF THE AGE. Do women ever stop to consider how immense for good or evil in its results upon commercial and civic life is the power they wield as shoppers’? The woman —even if, at the same time, she is an earner—is always and pre-emi-nently the spender. Now, to spend implies both the satisfying of an individual want and the performance of a social function. But, up to the present, women have appanntly acted as though their shopping concerned themselves and no one else besides; as though the only considerations were those affecting Die individual purchaser—the quality, quantity, and cheapness of the goods bought.' AS BAD AS STEALING. But it is now being more and more dearly seen that there is another side to this subject, which is not personal, but social. When a purchase is made by an individual consumer wide and far-reaching are the results for good or evil. So complex is modern society, so interdependent are we upon one another, so vast are bur commercial ramifications that the shopper—unconsciously, perhaps, but none the less really takes her share in bringing happiness or misery into the lives of tens of thousands of producers and distributors. When she makes her purchases, careless of everything but her own immediate interest, eager for bargains, trying always to buy in the cheapest market, she is committing an immoral, an anti-social action just as truly as if she tried to purloin goods from the counter. When on the contrary, she conscientiously regards the public good as of. at least, as much importance as respect to others’ needs, she helps in the performance of one of the most important social functions —the moralisation of demand. THE REMEDY.

How, then, to-day is-a woman to learn, first, the necessity of moralising her shopping, and, second, the means by which it can be done?

The lines along which reform should run are voluntary association and legislation.

It is evident that voluntary association should generally precede legislative action, and in this instance we require: —

The combination of individual purchasers in a consumers’ league. Their work will mainly consist in obtaining by patient investigation a list of the best and fairest shops where the most liberal and humane conditions are to be found, in patronising only such shops, and endeavouring to persuade others to do the same. All citizens, both men and women, can, and ought to, become members of such an association.

The combination of shop clerks, whose object will be to aid the Teague in its investigations, and to raise, particularly, the wages of the employee; the combination of factory and mill workers with a view to obtaining labelled goods — i.e., commodities which are certified as having been produced under fair—i.e.. trade union —conditions. Naturally, the league on its side will do everything to facilitate such a labelling of goods as will help to minimise the horrors of “sweating.”

But it will soon be found necessary to call in the aid of the law to make permanent and universal the reforms initiated by voluntary effort, such as would be effected by a shop hours Act and such factory legislation as would make “sweating” practically impossible by putting every embargo and difficulty on work made in domestic workshops, and in generally improving industrial conditions.