GROCERY EMPLOYERS' REUNION
'$ SUCCESSFUL GATHERING. ' _/THe annual reunion of. members of the ■ Wellington Grocers' Industrial Union of Employers was held last evening in Dustin's Hall, Caba Street, and proved very enjoyable." There was a good attend- ; ance of members, and several visitors ; 'were also present. The president of the union (Mr. H. D. Bennett) presided. Mr. W. Bull, in proposing the toast . of ; the Wellington Grocers' Industrial '-..Union of Employers,'said that,now tho war was over they\ were faced with sori-'■ouß-problems and the grocers, like other ' "retailers, must recognise that they must "do'their very best for the. industries of the Dominion. They had seen 'during • the'war period that ;New-Zealand could manufacture (foods, and that these goods ••.could,be handled by retailers. a,t a profit. " He asked thorn to continue supporting .the local industries in their own intereats, and in. the interests of the worker of the Dominion.
Mt. H. Wardell; who replied, was of : opinion that the association was not aggressive enough. He thought it' would A be better to fix maximum prices, which would'have the effect of preventing pricecutting. i ■ ' Mr. H. Wyatt proposed tho toast or "The Economic Problem," and in doing TO isaid the problem was • tho same today as it was 30 years ago in tho grocery trade, and would be so until the association did what it ought to do. The chairman, in responding; said that they lia<l brought the war to a success- . ful conclusion, and they now had to face the aftermath. Thcro were soma who believed that the economic war would be very severe, and' it was quite possible that New Zealand would liavo to go through a / great ' dwJ. This country had borrowed largely, and-they had undertaken a task that would require all their iiiflustry to overcome., Tho timo had como for facing tlm problem of bringing Capital and Labour togotlier, and in this theV should consider organisation as a means of accomplishing the faslt. It would bo impossible for New Zealand to pay the interest on its loans unless it were brought into the highest state of productivity. Our exports must exceed our imports by about i£l2,oto,ooj) a year to meet our engagements. and as we relied on our primary wo must see that the land was brought into tho highest state of production. In this lay salvation. Direct action would ruin the country, and so would the "go-slow" policy, and for that reason he thought that propaganda was necessary.
Other toasts honoured were "The N<w and Array," "Visitors/* nnd "Our Commercial Interests." Sonss nnd recitations were • givim "by Messrs. Ai J. Fogarty, E. Searlo, N. Aitken, Newtoi,, 'H. Brown, awl Albert Russell. I
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19190904.2.57
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 291, 4 September 1919, Page 6
Word count
Tapeke kupu
442GROCERY EMPLOYERS' REUNION Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 291, 4 September 1919, Page 6
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Dominion. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.