The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET. AUCKLAND FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1928 CASH-ORDER TRADING

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 543, 21 December 1928, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET. AUCKLAND FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1928 CASH-ORDER TRADING

AMONG the most impressive demonstrations made in the course of the last session of Parliament was that against the system of cash-order trading, by which the New Zealand post office virtually acts as agent for overseas firms, collecting from local consignees the price of the goods imported, as well as the postage and other charges thereon. Indications suggest that this obliging habit of the postal department has encouraged overseas cash-order trading to reach a huge volume. New Zealand retailers consider that the arrangement is seriously prejudicial to their interests, and last session they united to flood Parliament with petitions of protest. Every member, from day to day over a period of more than a week, had petitions to present on behalf of the retailers of his territory. In all, the total hulk of the petitions must have represented several wagon-loads. The upshot of it all was that the Government agreed to set up some sort of investigating commission. The result of the elections sent the Reform Government out of office before this could he effected; hut the new Minister of Industries and Commerce, the Hon. J. G. Cohhe, gave the assurance yesterday that he would cause the promise to be fulfilled. He could not’well avoid doing so. The United Government specifically undertook to eliminate such tendencies as that to which the retailers have taken emphatic objection. The difficulty is that the business has proved highly profitable to the post office. Sweet ladies idly turning the pages of a London society magazine—perhaps while waiting in a dentist’s surgery, or at one of those establishments where permanent waves are given a new permanence —see some intriguing novelty advertised by a Czecho-Slovakian, Parisian, or Birmingham manufacturer. It is a simple matter to send off an order to the English agent when one is not compelled to stand in a queue at the post office, and go through the fatiguing process of acquiring overseas money-order. And it matters not that the same or better merchandise could probably be bought in New Zealand for less than the total outlay finally incurred; for it is the irresistible fascination of doing a little private importing, and flaunting garments with that so-called foreign distinction which is so often merely a myth, that plays upon the impressionable human psychology. It is easy, -on a moment’s reflection, to see the unfairness of the system toward New Zealand retailers. It may encourage “dumping,” a most objectionable practice. It cheeks all the efforts of those who are endeavouring to promote New Zealand industries and popularise New Zealand-made goods; and it allows the big London departmental store to compete unfairly with the New Zealand shopkeeper. Whether dr no the post office makes a profit from this phase of its operations, it seems unreasonable that its concessions should react against New Zealand traders. The cash-order trading system has an unmistakable place in the commercial system of our own country, but its application to foreign markets should be restricted. Those who insist on buying pleasant trifles from abroad should employ the local retailer, not the post office, as their commission-agent.