WEEK END TRIPS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 1, Issue 50, 10 December 1912, Page 2

WEEK END TRIPS.

We do not think the Pukekohe ChiDiher of Commerce acted wisely in deciding to opposo th* request of the delegates who met in Pukekohe, for week-end trips t> Auckland. Tho Cliambor was evidently influenced by the fear felt by some of its members that if the Eailway Department giaute.l the facilities asked for the local shop-keepers would lose more or less trade. But the fact was lost sight of that tho Chamber is not a Shop-keepers' Protection Association. Tho membership of the Chamber - extends, or ought to extend into the surrounding country districts. The farmer has his commercial i interests' as well as the shopkeeper and his desire to enjoy week-end trips will stand examination from several view-points. Of course, if the basic.idea is to enable the farmers to go to the city weekly to do his shopping, a protest from the shop-keepers may reasonably be expected. We are amongst those who hold very strongly to the principle of trading in your own town. To seud the cash out of the locality is to permanently withdraw some proportion of tho money from local circulation. Ik it wore possible—which it is not —to spend locally all the money that is produced locally, what an impetus would be given to the commercial development of this district. We urge that the keynote of every business transaction ought to be: Can the business bo done, upon reasonably satisfactory terms, in this district ? The farmer who does all the trading that lfe v can locally is the long-headed farmer. Every additional 100 added to the population of a town spells increased value to all the surrounding farm lands. If the farmers of Mercer, Tuakau, Waiuku, Drury, Bombay, Pukekohe and the other townships are loyal to th -ir respective districts mutual pro6t awl mutual progress will assuredly follow.