THAT'LL BE ALL RIGHT!

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 144, 14 December 1911, Page 4

THAT'LL BE ALL RIGHT!

Mr. Kenrick, S.M., has, in common with every magistrate in New Zealand, denounced the extensive use of the credit system. At the Stratford Court he showed that many people who were unable to get their money in ended up in the Bankruptcy Court. Anyone who has watched bankruptcy ' proceedings has come across statements like this: "Book debts £375, estimated to produce £150," and so on. One cannot altogether blame tradesmen for "chancing it," because, the tradesman who insisted on cash over the counter would probably soon close his shutters, but it is so very obvious that the "good mark" has to pay for the defections of the "bad mark." that it is a matter for the public and not only for the shopkeeper. Magistrate's Court summons cases are particularly common, hut not half is ever told in the Magistrate's Court, for at least twothirds of the cases are settled before called and the expenses thereby decreas' . ed. There must be something wrong about a system that produces so large a croj) of court cases, and the fact that a too large proportion of people livp at the expenses of tradesmen and the tradesmen's paying customers needs 1 adjustment. The simplicity of obtaining credit is almost comic; the difficulty of obtaining payment in many cases quite tragic. The matter is capable of instant adjustment by the unity of all traders in a community. The absolute refusal of all hands to trade without cash on delivery would end the ( situation at once. These are the days' of cohesion and unionism, and a protection such as this would afford would result' in better service and cheaper commodities. The system of trading is badly in need of revision, and before the credit system is abolished the full weight and "true to name" system should be established, In a northern paper lately a letter appeared from a citizen complaining that his two hundredweight of coal was fifty pounds short. . He was not deserving of sympathy. He should, have seen it weighed. The haphazard New Zealand system of trading in commodities could not be countenanced in any country where the wages were smaller and where it was necessary to make 2s Gd do the most work. It is the public who are to blame for the credit system, the shortweight system, the adulteration system, the untrue to name system, and no tradesman will set about reform until the pubic* force it on him- While the public does not care tradesmen will go on supplying free goods to "bad marks'' and getting paid for them by good ones.The "bad mark".'is always on a "good wicket," for no magistrate can nnVke a person' pay money he doesn't possess. The "That'll be all right" of the tradesman to the new customer who wants credit is- the starting point of the unsatisfactory system.