The Hardware Trade.

Manawatu Standard, Volume 4, Issue 98, 3 April 1883, Page 2

The Hardware Trade.

The Australasian correspondent; of I the Ironmonger, a leadiug trade journal, writes m a recent issue : — " Anyone who will take the trouble to look into things must arrive at the conclusion I that trade, particularly the hardware trade, is considerably overdone m New Zealand, and stocks are too heavy throughout the colony to meeb the requirements of the limited population, even under the most favorable circumstances possible. Each. town of any size m New Zealand is a port, and each port the capital of a small district, though it fondly imagines itself the capital of the whole colony, and its merchants consequently lay m stocks far beyond their requirements. Lyttelton merchants, for instance, can do but little business; outside the province ef Canterbury, and I very much question whether the, ten hardware travellers sent about the country from Dnnedin really manage to pay their expenses when they get outside of Ofcago. There are ironmongers and dealers m hardware m New Zealand sufficient to supply a colony, if not of ten times the area of New Zealand, at all events, of ten times its present population, and I venture to predict that it will be some time before New Zealand ironmongers, including the largest and best of them, make gigantic fortunes.''