BRIBERY IS SAPPING BRITISH MORALE

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5317, 1 February 1947, Page 3

BRIBERY IS SAPPING BRITISH MORALE

MILKMAN'S £U A WEEK FOR UE1NG FAIR. Bribery, also so alien to the British charaeter, has become part of the daily life of a large proportion of the population. Everyone knows about it, nearly everyone does it. Mr. Burton Rowe. of the Briltery Prevention League, ro- j ports that in the last few years there j has been more l>rihery than ever 1 >e- j 1'ore in this country.' Ile was leferring to hig business bribes, but the "plain gveasing" that goes on in every town and village, every day, is i'ar more insidious and far more dangerous than the occasional hig bribe which is offered to a contractor or to a council offieial. The British people were never fond of the tipping system, but nowadays tipping has got out of hand — it has become bribery. Shop assistants are bribed not only with money, but with lipsticks, theatre tickets, eigarettes. . Half a crown handed over in a shopping hag gets the extra piece of meat, hutter or the canned dainty that is in short supply. A milkman — who shares his extra mil'k, quite fairly, among his customers — told me that he makes £14 a vvek from people who fondly imagine they are getting more than their quota. "It is time the nation awoke to this grave social evil," the manager of a big store said- to a reporter of The People. "Bribery is like all other rots. Once it starts it spreads. It destroys fair tsjading, causes discotitent, undermines morale. :"Th'ose who tip and those who take often don't realise the risks they are running. Shop assistants should be made to sign an undertaking that they will not accept bribes, and warned that such offences ai-e bi'eaehes of the Maximum Prices Order, subject to a long term of imprisonment."