FRONT WINDOW DRESSING

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 822, 16 November 1929, Page 7

FRONT WINDOW DRESSING

WHY NOT N.Z. GOODS? KEEP OUR WORKERS BUSY X”O one is more vitally concerned n the steadily increased sales of Dominion-made goods than our shopkeepers and their staffs. Most of the town customers are dir ectly or indirectly connected with our local industries. and the busier the workers are in our factories the more they have to spend in our shops. Yet many of our shopkeepers show a strange preference for displaying foreign goods. For a loug w liile now our shopkeepers have been complaining of i slackness of trade, scarcity of mono and growing: lists of bad paying cus turners. Yet our traders have not to look beyond tlicir own stores ami shops to tind the reason for business being dull. Most of the trouble is due to the fact that our sbops ait • selling too many imported goods, instead of keeping our own manufac- ! Hiring plants busy. The shopkeepers and the New Zealanders who com prise the sales staff may think it makes no difference whether the cus romer buys a local-made or imported article so long as a sale and a profit is made: but how can local shopper* whose pay envelope conies from locai industries pay their bills when tne bread-winner is partly or wholly un employed? It is surely a pleasant and pat riotic task to offer and sell the products of our own workers, made from our own materials under decent conditions. with reasonable hours of employment, good wages, healthy factories ana a high standard of living such a& New Zealand enjoys? It. must be depressing 10 offer goods I branded “Made in Germany'* or ‘’Produce of the Orient' : or articles raad<* in the sweatshops of other countries, when the salesman knows that The dependants of local workers are forced j to seek charitable aid to secure the bare necessities of life. A MILLION DROP IN WAGES Speaking in Parliament, on Septem ber IS last. Mr. H. E. Holland. M.P.. . Leader of the Labour Party, said that ( ! in group 3 of our classified manufac i turing industries there was a decrease | of 2.600 in the number of employees. ! and a drop of £L000.0t»0 sterling in I wages paid last year! Are our shopkeepers still surprised that trade i* • dull and buyers short of cash? A j tall of one million a year 5n the purj chasing power of our workers must | he felt by every business man in the ! community, and we must look for a | further fall iu the spendiug capacity* ' of our people if the million a week I now sent abroad for imported goods 1 continues to rise as it is doing. If every shopkeeper and every sales employee were to start boosting our own made goods, and impressing on patrons the virtue of supporting local workers, business in New Zealand would boom in every direction, with an everspreading wave of prosperity in the pool of trade. Our manufacturers and shopkeepei? ‘should combine in a permanent campaign for front-window dressing with our own goods. Not for a spasmodicperiod. but for every day in the week ‘ and every week in the year. Place New Zealand goods to the front and I keep them to the front. We cannot i afford to keep the workers of other ! countries busy while our own are ! idle. —P.A. .FOOTWEAR, TOO BE PROUD OF “PATRIATA” WHICH GIVES WORK TO AUCKLANDERS > No one need be ashamed of th* , excellent boots and shoes in New* Zealand, because not only are I they superior in wear and appearance but the making of them gives work to people in our own town. An outstanding example is furnished by the Auckland firm of G. A. Cole? and Company, Ltd., who have the largest boot factory in Auckland, and who work on the policy that wherever possible they themselves support local industry. This applies particularly to New Zealand leather, which they use exclusively for soles and for the heavier footwear. The effect of the purchase of New Zealand leather means help to other New Zealand industries, right throughout the country, not only to the tan ners, but to the farmers who sell the hides. When, therefore, a buyer purchase* a pair of New Zealand-made shoes, he not only has the pleasure of knowing that he is giving employment to New Zealand boot factory operatives, but. he should know that he is buying Xew Zealand leather and furthering the interests of New Zealand tarmer.and in every direction keeping the j money in the country. The farmer | in their turn, must realise that the • more Xew Zealand-made boots are j sold, the better is the home market i for their hides. ! Leather is, however, only one example of the supporting New Zealand policy of Messrs. G. A. Coles and Company, Ltd. For example, the wooden heels fitted to ladies’ shoes are mad - of New Zealand timber. Further, all their shoes, including the famous “King Cole” and “Patriata” brand? j are put up in cardboard boxes made ! in New Zealand, thus in another dire--J tion providing work for their fellow J countrymen. THE NEW ZEALAND MARKET : The eyes of foreign nations* are upon this country seeking a market for their surplus supplies of the very goods 1* ourselves are able to make equally well.