THE CASH ORDER

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 280, 16 February 1928, Page 11

THE CASH ORDER

JEWELLER’S OPINIONS The spreading influence of the cash order system throughout Australia was described at the conference of the Federated Retail Jewellers’ Association recently, as a menace to the community, and one of the greatest evils the public, and the working man in particular, had to face. Miss E. Thompson, Queensland, said the system had a demoralising effect, because it enabled people to mortgage their future. Mr. A. E. Salmon, N.S.'W., describing the strong hold the system had in Sydney, said the business people there would welcome its abolition, but it had such a firm grip that they had either to accept it or turn away business. According to Mr. A. M. Merrington, N.S.W., the annual turnover of one Sydney cash order company was as much as £ 2,000,000. Shopkeepers did not like the system, which encouraged people to buy things they would do without if they had to save the money. Mr. H. M. Bright, Victoria, asserting that cash orders were used in Melbourne for amounts as low as 2s 6d, declared that while the cash order companies claimed that theirs was the cheapest form of money-lending in the world, actually they were making a higher percentage of profit than any other organisation of a similar character. They generally required a sum like £ 5 to be paid within 20 weeks, but as it was frequently repaid in half that time the same £5 was used over and over again during a year, until it- was possible for it to earn 212 per cent, within 12 months. “If we give these barnacles and parasites the right to enter the community, and take from it without production up to 50 and 60 per cent, profit on every pound spent,” he concluded, “where will the countin' end?” It was decided that the States’ associations should endeavour by legislative means to have the cash order system eliminated from their businesses.