SOLDIERS’ BUSINESSES.

Taihape Daily Times, 30 August 1918, Page 6

SOLDIERS’ BUSINESSES.

PROTECTION AGAINST RIVALS. > PROFIT-SHARING SCHEME. WELLINGTON, August 29. Cabinet to-day adopted regulations designed to remove some of tbe hardships due to unfit men profiting in business through rivals being called np for service. The Minister for Defence states that it is intended, where men in businesses or professions in any district are called up the soldiers’ businesses will be protected businesses, while others of the same remaining will be massed as restricted businesses of professions.” “We intend.” said Sir Jamas Allen, “to make those remaining help the called up man i 0

maintain his business. The administrative authority will be the National Efficiency Board, acting with the Soldiers’ Property Boards of Trustees constituted under the Soldiers’ Property Regulations of 1917. When the National Efficiency Board- is satisfice that any person is carying o\i, or is about to carry, any busines which will compete with the protected business of the soldier, and which will be rendered more profitable by the destruction or diminution of that protected business through the absence of the soldier on military service, the Board may give notice that such business is not to be carried on except under license by the Board. Every business covered by such a notice is described as a ‘restricted business.’ The notice may apply to the whole of such business or to any part. Such a license may he granted on condition that the license shall enter into a deed of agreement with the board of trustees of a protected business, acting on behalf of a soldier, such payments as may he estimated by the National Efficiency Board to he equivalent to the additional profits to be derived by the restricted business from the cessation or diminution of the protected business. The amount may he estimated either as fixed sums or as defined proportions of the profits of the restricted business, or in any other manner as is just and practicable in the particular case.

“Provision is made for the protection of the businesses of soldiers in partnership or as shareholders of companies. In the case of a company it is stated that the business shall be deemed to be a separate business to the extent of the share of the soldier in the company, and may become a protected business, accordingly. In such a case the business of the company, to the extent of the interests of the ether shareholders, may become a restricted business under these regulations. A similar provision appHes'io partnerships. “Without the permission of the National Efficiency Hoard it shall not he lawful for any person to establish or carry on any new business as a retail shopkeepr, merchant, importer, ex-

porter, commission agent, indent agent, accountant, auditor, medical practitioner, or dentist,’’ states the regulations. “Permission may be granted by the board, with such restrictions as to the locality or manner in which the business shall be carried on as the board thinks necessary in the public interest. Any extension or alteration of an old business, whether in respect of locality, scope or nature, shall be deemed to be the establishment or carrying on of a new business within the meaning of the regulation. The fact that a business has been established with the permission of the board under this regulation shall in no manner take away, or affect with respect to that business ,the powers conferred on the board with respect to protected and restricted businesses.”