Fair Competition

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 359, 21 May 1928, Page 8

Fair Competition

PRINCIPLE OF HOURS FIXATION State’s Duty to Small Shops FAIR competition is the declared object of recent legislation governing the hours of shops and offices, and since the Government restricted the trading period in certain retail lines, business has been gradually diverted into what the authorities describe as “legitimate” channels. The legislation unquestionably has produced the effect of removing man> destructive parasites from specific spheres of trade.

Possibly no individual piece of legislation has given a Minister of the Crown such cause for concern as did the 1927 amendment to the Shops and Offices Act give the Minister of Labour, the Hon. G. J. Anderson. Upon departmental advice, he embarked upon the task of rectifying the ills of shopkeepers and shop assistants; upon the insistence of the standing committees of the House of Representatives he allowed his Bill to be mutilated beyond recognition, and passed in a form which cast many doubts wpon its general efficacy. Despite many weaknesses in the tenor of the legislation, however, specialised retail dealers welcome the tendency toward forcing trade into avenues where competition is placed on a comparatively fair basis. Before the passage of the original Shops and Offices Act in 1904 the hours of shop assistants were unlimited, and trade was unrestricted. In that year a half-holiday was given to shop assistants, but the hours of shops remained without limit. It was not until a few years later that the hours of

shop were restricted, and permission given the proprietors of businesses to fix the closing time for their own particular trades. Speaking broadly, shops selling perishable goods were not compelled to close in the evening or on any half-day. SIDE-LINE TRADE In many shops certain goods have been sold merely as side-lines to the chief stock-in-trade, and have effected immeasurable harm to those shops where these goods are sold, not

as side-lines, but as the principal commodity. A confectioner would harm a tobacconist by selling cigarettes after the tobacconist's hours; a fruiterer or florist would cut deeply into the business of a seedsman by selling plants and seeds after the legitimate seedsman had closed his doors. There is a substantial school of thought which believes this to be fair and legitimate competition. Not so the authorities, nor the business men who are affected. The reasoning of the State is that if all hours for the sale of a certain class of goods are assessed uniformly, none can complain, for then all trading conditions are comparatively equal. If the fruiterer closes his door with the seedsman, and the confectioner shuts up shop with the tobacconist, all things are equal, and the consumer benefits from the competitive element; and the fittest man survives the gauntlet of public choice. PURSUING A PRINCIPLE If the confectioner will not close his shop at 5.30 p.m. with the tobacconist, then he must not stock cigarettes at all. No longer is he allowed surreptitiously to flout the law by erecting a curtain between the cigarette and tobacco department and the confectionery shop. So is it with the fruiterer, No longer may he stock seeds and plants if he is to remain open in the evening and on half-days. It is unlikely that a fruiterer will sacrifice a perfectly good fruit business and go in exclusively for the sale of plants and seeds; nor is it probable that any bpsinessman will sacrifice his principal line for the maintenance of a particular side-line—subject to all the restrictions of the hours regulations in the Statute. Complications there are in the Shops and Offices Act, and deficiencies frequently are found to exist in what was thought to be a watertight measure. But the principle underlying the State regulation of trading hours remains the same, and is being pushed gradually, but persistently, toward fulfilment. To meet the requirements of all classes the State must make competition fair. Its difficulties are only too apparent. SUBURBAN SHOPS In Auckland recently several hundreds of proprietors of suburban shops, stocking a miscellany of goods, took advantage of the exemption clause in the Act and applied for exemption on account of hardship. The magistrate indicated the lines upon which he would assess the degree of hardship—having regard always to the question of public requirements. The further away from the city were the shops, he suggested, the greater would be the hardship of closing, and inconvenience to the residents, and therefore the greater the need for exemption. The nearer the city, the less was the need to keep large numbers of trade lines on account of the increased population to maintain specialist shops. The big departmental store, which stocks everything from the proverbial anchor to the pin, hits the small storekeeper severely, but as this establishment closes its premises at the same time as the small places, it is fair competition.