COMPANY’S AFFAIRS.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 June 1921, Page 8

COMPANY’S AFFAIRS.

‘•SCANDALOUSLY SLANDERED.” POSITION OF THE FARMERS’ UNION TRADING CO. CHAIRMAN’S VIGOROUS REPLY. Speaking at the annual meeting of the Farmers’ Union Trading C. npany last week, Mr. James Boddie, chairman of directors, said: —“I know we have been the most talked of, the most adversely criticised, and perhaps the most scandalously slandered of any business concern in the Dominion. Sinister and unjustifiable rumors of every conceivable description have been industriously circulated, and yet in spite of it all we have gone steadily ahead. Why? Simply because we have not been afraid to get out of the ordinary rut. Realising early in the season that just as soon as it was evident that the break had come, all hands and the cook would be on the job unloading, we got busy, knowing that when others wakened up it would be a scramble, each for himself, and the devil take the hindmost. Speaking with a thorough inside knowledge of the business, I make bold to affirm that compared with most business concerns anywhere in the Dominion to-day, our stocks and our whole position compare more than favorably. “To sum up the whole position,” said the speaker, “the outstanding lesson is this, that business can be. got by the man who is prepared to go for it, using progressive and attractive backed by good value and honest trauma ing. In other words, the psychological effect of judicious advertising is still a potent factor with the successful trader and has become indispensible in the development of successful business.” The figures in regard to increase in properties, stocks, credits, and business generally, showed an aggregate total of £450,000 over last year, while the increase in paid-up capital only amounted to £87,340. The wide discrepancy between the proportionate increase shown hy these figures provided a sufficient reason why the board decided to put on the market a limited number of bonds. So far they had been extremely fortunate in this respect. Through’ the whole of the trying period of excessive importations, when in a short period of seven weeks they had been called upon to meet £187.000 of drafts, many of them unexpected, not a single z one was dishonoured, nor had they up ro the present moment failed to meet any commitment as it came along; nor had they failed to secure at any time every penny of available discount that keen buying and prompt payment could secure. All the same they recognised that more capital w r as needed, and this position had been accentuated to a certain extent by the passing of the moratorium legislation during the last short session, by which an embargo had been placed on money lying on deposit and call in the hands of companies and corporations. “This I want to emephatically state,” said Mr. Boddie, “was not for our benefit, but was brought into existence very much against our will and our efforts to stop it. I mention this because I know that current rumor, lying jade as she ever is, has credited us with being the cause of that legislation.” He was glad to report that considering the short period the bonds’ had been under offer, and the keen demand for capital from so many sources, that they had been successful in placing well over £65,000, a very gratifying result.