THE TOBACCO TRADE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 871, 18 July 1910, Page 6

THE TOBACCO TRADE.

MR. J. B. SPEED IN REPLY.. In a recent interview with a Dominion representative, Mr. J. B. Speed, president of the New Zealand Hetail Tobacconists' Association, referred to an article appearing in the Christchurch "Press" of July 7, dealing with proposals, discussed at the conference of retail tobacconists, lately held in Wellington. A Christchurch message,' published in Tjie Dominion on Saturday, is regarded as 'a reply to Mr. Speed, and Mr. Speed's rejoinder to that message is as follows:— "Decidedly," he says, "I made no mistake, I simply repudiated proposals wrongly attributed to us in the 'Press, , and which, as an association, we have no intention of adopting. If the Christchurch pressman nad consulted Mr. Simpson, of his own town, who was a delegate to the conference, he would have obtained from him the fact that a number of us were in favour of a license.' Speaking for myself, I want the license, and I was guilty of no somersaulting when the delegates' waited upon the Hon. Mr. Millar. In company, with others, I had- to speak iii accordance with the decision of the majority of the conference, which declared against the /license. When tiie previous deputation interviewed the Minister, on June 24, it was a purely local matter. At that time we had no idea that a general conference could be successfully convened. Had we had such an idea, the chances are we should not at that time have waited on the Minister. I am at a loss to understand any delegate - making the assertion that any attempt would be made to interfere with clubs. As a matter of fact the conference did not consider the question of clubs at all, "The article in the 'Press' of July 7 purports to be chiefly based on interviews with grocers and other tradesmen. In the latest message mention is made of delegates. As a matter of fact it was agreed, by the conference that information should meantime be supplied to the press only by myself. Therefore I may surely claim that information emanating from me should be accepted as correct. Trading on unauthorised statements will simply undo the good work that has been done. "In conclusion," said Mr. Speed, "I wish to reiterate that the Tobacconists' Association has no intention of creating a close corporation, or of asking that tobacconists shall be licensed. We do desire that 'Itobacconist' should be defined as are other trades in the Shops and Offices Act. As I have previously pointed out, the hours of tobacconists are already fixed' by statute."