PUKEKOHE AND PAEROA

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 9, Issue 535, 28 May 1920, Page 2

PUKEKOHE AND PAEROA

AS OTHERS SEE US. Commenting on a recent editorial which appeared in this paper, the Ohinemuri Gazette says some complimentary ithings about us. Our contemporary expresses its opinion that the "Times" has undergone a wonderful change for the better during the past year or so, and that it is a loyal champion of the interests of the town and district, and fearless in its condemnation of what it believes to be wrong. The Gazette reproves Paeroa businessmen for not patronising their local paper as do the businesspeople of Pukekohe. The journal also , makes some very flattering person;.l remarks which modesty forbids us publishing. The "Times" fully appreciates these kindly references, , though we do not say that we are altogether deserving of them. As tu the Paeroa businesspeople not giving their local paper sufficient "patronage," we do not think the Gazette (which carries much more reading matter than the "Times" does and is a good type of provincial , paper) need worry on that score. The attitude of the "Times" to local non-advertisers is that they will either continue in a small way indefinitely, or be crushed out of business altogether by those who adverttse. The latter fate has overtaken more than one non-advertiser during the past two years. We never allow anyone connected with the "Times" to ask a businessman to give us his "patronage" -the word, in this sense. implies a combination of both patronage and blackmail. We show a prospective customer why all the local people in 'the district who court for anything are practically certain to read the "Times," and then we give him the opportunity of addressing all the worth-while people per medium of our advertising columns. The proposition is put to him primarily, of course, because its acceptance will pay us,, but if he has not the common-sense to see that it will also pay him, we do not waste any further time on him. We know he will never Hide in a motor-car (except it be a taxi—and not much in that), because he is too dense to see where his interests lie. And he does not sense the fact that, in these times when talk of profiteering is rife, an advertised price list, for instance, is a big draw, because it lets the people see that Mr. Square Deal is not afraid of being challenged for selling at too high figures. Our experience has always been that the more capable in business a man is the more readily he will fall in with a reasonable advertising proposition. It costs money to sell goods, as well as it does to make them, and the public pays both ways, but as the experience all over the world has |

been, and still is, that advertising is easily the cheapest method of selling, and immensely increases the total turnover, it follows that, other things being equal, advertised goods are usually the cheapest. This must necessarily be so, because even a merchant who is not in the habit of advertising will not allow a regular advertiser ;to grasp the market when the former can undersell him at a profit.

Our contemporary's remarks show that, as in Pukekohe, there are men in business in Paeroa who- are no£ really businessmen. Never milS," brother, men and things find the|r level sooner or htfer, and non-advel? tisers, like small potatoes, go to thei bottom when anyone is energetic enough to give them a shake.