AIDS TO BUSINESS. Shouting for Customers.

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 193, 12 March 1904, Page 6

AIDS TO BUSINESS. Shouting for Customers.

H^LF the business m New Zealand has the finishing stroke put to it over the barcounter." Thus a very successful commercial traveller to the Lance on a recent occasion. A case has recently been heard in Blenheim, in which an ex-manager sued his late firm for recovery of damages to recoup him for alleged wrongful dismissal, and the case dealt largely with the ethics of attracting business by means of "shouting." We don't intend to make any reference to the merits of that case, but we want to say that between the hours of 9 m the morning and 10 at night thousands of pairs and parties of men m New Zealand drop into the nearest hotel. They don't go there because they are thirsty. A man sells another fellow a horse. The seller "shouts." The man who bought the horse doesn't want the whisky, but he thinks the seller is a "good sort," and wouldn't deal any more with a man who consumed "Johnny Woodsers " The "shouting" habit is about the silliest national habit the Bnt.sher has, and the liquor trade would collapse if the habit was not a national characteristic. The commercial traveller "shouts'' for his customer, and the average firm allows its travellers money for the purpose. It is an invitation to inebriety, and is a ridiculous way of persuading a man that your goods are good goods. * * * The idea of taking a man m to have a whisky to prove to him that you have done him a favour by selling him a line of cotton goods or German pianos, is really very funny. You haven't seen your friend since yesterday. "Come and have a drink?" Your friend has a cold. "Shout" for him, and cure it. The weather is hot, and your friend is opposite Johnny Martin's fountain, but you mustn't advise him to have a drmk of water. That would be extremely mean. It is up to you to show your love for him by buying him a penn'orth of whisky for sixpence, and you will probably, out of love for him and the publican, stand up against a counter and gulp it down without comfort or relish, merely because it is custom.

It is hard to have to say it, but the average colonial) clinches most of his bargains) and expresses his friendliness with alcohol. More than half the business people who accept & "shout" don't want it, and one wouid. think that it would influence them against the "shouter." It isn't 90, however. It is the cement that binds buyer and seller together. A man will buy a glass of grog for a person he despises, and enemies will often drink together, feeling thereafter some sort of obligation for future peace. Probably, in time the ladies will teach us to do our "shouting" in afternoon tea, and thereby add another meal to the daily regimen.