THE SMALL TRADER
Srg,—I write to draw your attention to the Government's latest attempt to exterminate the small trader and quote my own case as an example.
I am an ex-Service man 46 years of age who served in the H.A.C. (Artillery) and was gassed in the last war. I returned from that war and could not find work in this country to keep me, so I went to West Africa on service with the Colonial Bank. I saved my money and took up hairdressing. I set up in business for myself in 1929 and built it up to employ four men and four girls at the outbreak of war. I have lost all of them to the Services, &c., and now have two unfit men and two girls (one I lose in a few months, being zo years of age). I am now called to do war work. I look around and find men who did -not serve in the last war drawing fat salaries in good jobs, many of the men much younger than myself. I find situations kept open for those who have gone into the Ser- vices with their money supplementing their Service pay. Yet I, who have been ruined once and never had a thing done for me by the Government, have to be ruined again. A woman (not herself a hairdresser) runs her hairdressing shop for pin-money, being com- fortably off, and is allowed to keep her business. Five months ago another woman was allowed to open opposite me, this in spite of the Government classifying hairdressing amongst luxury business—a matter of query in view of the danger to public health from lice and associated diseases. Yet I, who have given anything from 12 to zo hours weekly since 1938 to A.R.P. wardens duties, am to suffer.
I maintain that I have done my share of sacrificing all in the last war. Let those who did not serve then sacrifice all this time. So justice will prevail. If the Government are going to treat ex- Service men like this they will not get much work out of them. I therefore maintain that, in the interests of public health and justice, older men like myself should be left to carry on our business.—
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