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Price War

A University bookshop scheme started in Christchurch by students of Canterbury University is threatened with extinction by a "price war". The scheme, enthusiastically supported by most students and staff, but opposed by the University Council and Professorial Board, is running into what Canta, the students' newspaper, calls "strong and rather unscrupulous opposition' from the city's and New Zealand's largest firm of booksellers.

The University bookshop had its origins in dissatisfaction among students and staff with the standard of service from most shops in the city. It was felt that a shop dealing exclusively with the University trade would be more satisfactory. Students also had as a model a most successful and efficient University bookshop which had operated at Otago University, in Dunedin, in recent years.

The Canterbury University student body voted in favour of the scheme in mid-1957, and a proprietor for the shop was chosen. He received permission from the city authorities to run a bookshop. The Students' Association was to invest £1000 in the shop as preference shares, and to receive a yearly percentage of the profits.

These plans received their first check when the University Council refused to approve them, contending that the Students' Association was barred by its own constitution from investing money in this way. Taking the only course open, the Association then altered its constitution at a special general meeting, but the amendments failed to receive the necessary approval of the Professorial Board "because it (the Board) did not think it was proper for the Association's funds to be used in a way which the law did not permit for other University money,"

Baulked on two occasions, the student body decided to go ahead without investing money in the scheme. The proprietor managed to set up the bookshop, but when students came to enrol early in the year, they were met with posters from a firm of city booksellers offering 20% discount on all textbooks.

Since the firm has never in the past offered more than 15% discount (and then only for very large bulk orders) students have interpreted the new offer as an attempt to throttle the University bookshop at birth. They also anticipate that once the University bookshop has succumbed to the opposition, the old city prices and bad service will return.

Canta comments: "The idea of a monopoly is frightening; a system where most of the power lies on one side is stultifying to private enterprise; and it is the inevitable result of monopolies that slip-shod and slap-dash methods develop, with a falling off in the standard of service.

Meanwhile, a complaint has been forwarded to the New Zealand Booksellers' Association, for it is contended that the city firm's action is contrary to the Booksellers' Association rules.

—From N.Z.U.S.P.C. Bulletin.

"Marriage and celibacy are both evils; it is belter to choose the one which is not incurable."

—Nicolas de Chamfort.