THE RED LABEL
BUNDLES of little triangular red labels have been dealt out to every Post Office. They are the trade mark of a venture new to Britain, though not to Europe and Greater Britain. The hope is that the labels may soon become as familiar as the initials C.O.D. are already familiar. A good many schoolboys who could not interpret such long-established commercial abbre- viations as F.O.B. or C.I.F. already know that C.O.D. means Cash on Delivery. The advertisement has been efficient. The innovation has enjoyed "a' good Press." That is all to the good ; but as yet too little has been said, or perhaps thought, about the exacter methods of making a success of the Postmaster-General's offer. Those who call the red label the Mark of the Beast have been more vociferous in explaining the possible ills and weaknesses of the system than its friends in instructing consumer and producer, especially producer, how to extract value from it.
Certain frauds of an ingenious sort are not uncommonly perpetrated where C.O.D. flourishes. The commonest victim is not the householder, but the tourist or visitor to an hotel. The hotel porter, possibly in league with the tradesman, receives some objet d'art for Mr. X., pays the exorbitant sum, and extracts it thereafter from the "addressee." Mr. X., who has not ordered the article at all, is too soft-hearted to refuse to pay and too lazy to bring the seller to book. He was probably selected for the fraud because he had made inquiries at the shop about the object, and presumably wanted it though he felt he could not afford it. It is possible to imagine quite con- siderable frauds of this sort. The receiver must pay the postman at once, and may not wait to examine the parcel to see whether the contents are up to sample. He must pay first and look afterwards. But even in centres where commercial morality is lowest and tourist victims most plentiful, no one thinks of surrendering the advantages of the system because of such occasional abuses. It is as much a common amenity of life as, say, the admirable Swiss system (quite neglected on this side of the channel) of forwarding small luggage through the agency of the Post Office.
It is generally understood, though no doubts have been officially expressed, that the system is merely enjoying a trial trip, and its continuance will depend upon the results both in the Post Office and outside it. No one yet knows how great a strain it will put on the staff or whether it will be a profit or a financial loss to the Department, or what classes of the community will use it. But these questions may be set aside. It is the proper job of the public to try to extract the maximum of advantage from the facility. Now shopping by post has increased enor- mously and is increasing ; but the class who have quite failed to sell their goods in this way is the producer of food. In general he is altogether out of direct touch with the consumer. So complete is this divorce that country dwellers :as far away as Newbury—to give a par-. ticular example—ruin their too costly meals by eating stale vegetables procured from Covent Garden by local greengrocers The small producer, or intensive producer on any scale, has now, a new chance of setting a term to such absurdities to the mutual advantages of both himself and the consumer. Nearly all discussions have centred round the despatch of goods from town shops to country buyers ; but the traffic in the reverse direction is the more important in essence though not in bulk. The C.O.D. system ought to enable the urban householder to buy fresher eggs, flowers, cream cheeses, poultry, vege- tables and whatnot at a lower price, and simultaneously enable the farmer to sell at a dearer. The whole trade in such products may be stimulated to the general advantage only if such sellers adopt a sensible and unselfish' policy. Let us suppose that a dairyman or poultryman or a market gardener is to-day receiving from the market 10s. for a weight or quantity of stuff that is -retailed at 11. (This difference or " spread " is probably under the mark.) It is to be feared that a good many farmers and smallholders, especially in more out-of-the-way places, will want to put all this extra money (minus, of course, the Post Office charge) into their own pockets. If they do they will find few customers, and will quite rightly be neglected by the domestic caterer, who should be their natural ally. It is now the common custom of smallholders in country places to charge private customers the full" shop price." Often they will not name a price at all till they have seen the market quotations. Such greed is destructive of its object. It further buttresses the existing methods of distribution, by which the producer and consumer between them pay for the heavy overhead and transport and rehandling charges incident to the sale of the produce after it leaves the farm.
The right way of turning C.O.D. to profit is for the seller to share .the proffered balance with the buyer. What the present distributors charge is no concern at all of the producer. Certainly it does not set him a standard of price. The new system will confer a benefit only if it reduces the existing "spread." A farmer who now sells at 10s. what is ultimately sold for 11 should be content to sell direct at, say, 15s. In that case bah he and the consumer would be better off than they are now by a large percentage, even if we exclude loss by bad debts inherent in the older methods. In what proportion the new profit should be divided between producer and con- sumer need not be discussed. The point to be empha- sized is that the grower should, to his own great advan- tage, endeavour to persuade his direct castomers that fresher and cheaper food is to be had by use of the Cash on Delivery facilities than by the old system of many middlemen. If that policy is pursued, the small red labels will multiply to the permanent benefit of the com- munity, especially the landless, urban consumer and the countryman who has a little land of intensive capacity. The system has, of course, many daily uses in the selling and purchase of all sorts of goods. Shops will be con- cerned on a larger scale than farms ; but it is only in the question of the direct supply of food from country to town that it may essentially influence the organization of daily life ; and, indeed, enhance the health of the British folk.
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