1934-1935

Eventually, in early 1934, we got a beautiful warehouse only a couple of hundred yards from my existing site, the rent of which when we first enquired, was £11 per week, and was far beyond us. This warehouse was big enough to accomodate both firms, with beautiful fittings, both in warehouse and in offices, at one time the premises was occupied by Inglis Bros., the biggest cycle dealers in New Zealand. Eventually we made a bargain for five months' tenancy at £7 per week which, seeing that Messrs. Phelan & Lonsdale were paying us £5, was a mighty cheap rental for excellent premises for ourselves.

Our Present Home. Picture taken immediately after complete occupation for our own use only, together with four of our six Travellers' Cars at that time.

As soon as all the financial and other arrangements had been completed for the demolition and rebuilding, I stuck to my programme, which was to go again to England to the Renold and Coventry Conference, and after organising and seeing the safe removal of ourselves and our tenants to the new building, with the demolition of the old building completed and the new building started, I sailed for England in company with my daughter, Louie, in May, going direct via Panama by the Rangitata, and arriving 7th or 8th of June.

I went with the definite idea of, if possible, getting a good Diesel Engine Agency, or possibly an Agency for a good Electric Motor, the latter only if approved by Mr. Jenkins of the Renold & Coventry Chain Co. I felt, and our salesmen, Mr E.C. Parker, Mr Tabart, and Mr Searle were all agreed that a good Diesel Engine Agency would help us sell more Chain Drives and be of greater service to the community we were attempting to serve, so soon after my arrival in England, in the company with Mr W.T. Christian, I visited the Royal Agricultural Show at Ipswich, after receiving an invitation from the Blackstone Diesel Engine people, and there we contacted one, Tom Price, Sales Manager of that firm, who quickly enthused us with the soundness and the value of the goods manufactured, and eventually we concluded an Agency for New Zealand with these good people.

A small stock was ordered, small engines from 3 to 9 h.p., and all details, together with the technical points of Diesel Engines and Unchokeable Pumps sent out for our people here to study in the meantime.

On my return, in December, I came to the conclusion that there was only one way to work that business, like all the rest, that was by having somebody at the head that knew the job inside out and specialised selling. Towards this end we advertised all over the country for a couple of weeks, for the correct Sales Engineer with the necessary technical Diesel and electrical knowledge, and the selection of this particular person was the most difficult of any I have undertaken. However, by process of elimination, we eventually secured the services of Ralph Heaton Wear, who though taking a little while to settle down to my methods of business, eventually did get settled down and happy in his job, and a wonderful worker, and the wonderful technical knowledge he applied really quickly established us in the Diesel Engine and Pump business.

While it did, to a degree, help us in Transmission business, the real result in that direction was disappointing, and I felt more and more as the days went by, that Mr Jenkin's advice against the Agency for an Electric Motor was not based on true knowledge of New Zealand conditions and A.R. Christian Ltd's capacity. The basis of his objection being that in years past, one of our greatest assistants to sales of Renold Transmission was through the agents for the sale of motors in New Zealand keeping us appraised of their sales and giving us a chance to sell the Transmission. Conditions, however, were quickly altering in this direction, as our specialised sale of Transmission taught them that there was something in the business, and almost all of these agents had got for themselves a sole agency for our pet aversion and competition in short drives, the Vee Belt Drive. Hence, our not being in the motor business any more through them, caused our sales to suffer, that is, in Renold, although our general turnover was still going up, the bigger individual sale of Blackstone made turnover look good; but of course the same ratio of gross profit was not available from that line.

We soon needed an assistant for Mr Wear's side, which was provided in the shape of Mr Meyer, a very studious and clever personality, but without any aggressive selling ability such as Mr Wear had - and as we all had here - but he did relieve Mr Wear considerably for outside aggressive effort.

With the advent of Blackstone and still increasing business, both as far as we were concerned and Phelan & Lonsdale, at the end of 1935 we were nearly as stuck for room - both firms - as we were in 1933, both firms suffering from growing-pains. This was the position in June, 1935, when we got a terrible shock in the fact of a Receiver stepping into E. Reynold & Co.'s business on behalf of the Bank, in fact, only four hours after they had accepted from us goods to the value of £964. From the statement of affairs then made, it did appear as though there would never be any money left for unsecured creditors after the debenture-holder had been satisfied; but that was the smallest loss, it meant that one section of our business was dead on the one hand, and on the other, that to keep it alive we had to keep it off the market, which we had always controlled on price, the goods to the value of many thousands of pounds, which remained in Reynold's stock to be liquidated. Owing to the manner in which we were fooled by the Bank into delivering that last consignment of goods, they were glad to accept, to save publicity, all the goods we required from that liquidation at our own terms, and payment for same at our own sweet will, therefore in a short two weeks we doubled our stock commitment, we more than doubled our staff and doubled our motor cars, and commenced once again direct specialised selling of the good old Ferodo lines - taking over the Warehouse Manager of E. Reynolds to run that section, and their North Island Traveller, who had always been the star man on Ferodo products for E. Reynolds and Co.