CLEAN MAGAZINES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 912, 4 March 1930, Page 1

CLEAN MAGAZINES

IMPORTS OF TRADE REMAINDERS NOT SECOND-HAND GOODS Statements made by a representative of a large City firm which imports magazines on the menace to health in the importation of cheap, second-hand American publications were answered this morning by a firm which deals with “trade remainder” publications. Mr. Stanley Newcomb, the principal of Stanley Newcomb and Company, wholesale stationers and booksellers, of Customs Street East, referred to the confusion of second-hand n\agazines with trade remainders. His firm had dealt with trade remainders, which were overprints in excess of the demand at the time of publication, for 15 years. “We were not particularly interested in the statements at the time,” said Mr. Newcomb, “as we do not deal in second-hand magazines. In a later issue, we noticed that a large City firm's representative had drawn particular attention to the last of our monthly importations, by the Remuera, from London. We emphatically deny his statement that the shipment was of second-hand magazines. We have not at any time imported such publications. “The periodicals concerned —trade remainder's—are perfectly new and clean. They have not been handled by the public anywhere. “The firm which gave the information would ascertain from the ship's manifest which firm had made the importations by the Remuera. It would also know that the importingfirm was not a licensed second-hand dealer, which it would have to be to trade in such a class of goods. We have examined the manifests and the dates mentioned in the statements and find that they coincide with our consignments. As others import these magazines we cannot understand the reason for referring to our trade remainder magazines as secondhand.” j Mr. Newcomb said the medical officer of health. Dr. T. J. Hughes, had, because of the statements, been invited to inspect the shipment. Dr. Hughes) could not come, but his representative had been satisfied that the trade remainder publications were thoroughly clean.