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Questions the value of ‘morale boosting’ as a device for salesman improvement, concludes that attention to specific attitudes is likely to prove more rewarding. Specifies the improvement of sales‐force morale is often seen as vital to effective performance. Sheds light on the scarcity of research efforts and the inconclusiveness of available findings indicate the effects of job attitudes on sales performance are uncertain and, at best, are likely to be situation specific. Chronicles that this study was designed to contribute to a small but growing body of research efforts into the question of job attitudes and selling performance.

Considers the need to select customer contact personnel who already exhibit the desirable trait of adaptability, thus reducing the need for training. Discusses the issue of adaptability in service employees and how to select for adaptability. Examines several methods which can be used in the selection process, such as abstract questioning, situational vignette interviewing, role playing. Concludes that whiletraining is vital for all employees, creative interviewing techniques can help to secure service‐oriented employees who represent the most potential for service businesses.

Noteworthy shifts in availability of raw materials, component parts and products have had a profound influence on customer service levels. Changes in these levels have dramatised the importance of and concern for effective management of customer service in distribution. As a result, adjustments in business procedure and organisational structure are necessary.

The brief announcement that the Government had accepted that there should be regulations on open date marking of food, to come into effect in 1975, will come as no surprise. It is a timely reminder of what public pressure can achieve these days; how sustained advocacy and publicity by interested sectors of society—magistrates, local authorities, public health workers, consumer groups—can secure legislative changes which, in this case, run counter to trade opinions and the recommendation originally made by the Food Standards Committee that such a proposal was not practical and the existing law was an adequate protection. This was stated in the FSC Report on Food Labelling of 1964, although there was no indication of the evidence reviewed or that the subject had been considered very deeply; it was, after all, only a small fraction of the problem of food labelling control. It was also stated in this Report that in certain cases, date‐stamping of food could give to purchasers a false sense of security, “not justified by the conditions under which the food has been kept since manufacture”.

The Sanitary Committee of a certain County Council, strong with the strength of recent creation, have lately been animated by a desire to distinguish themselves in some way, and, proceeding along the lines of least resistance, they appear to have selected the Public Analyst as the most suitable object for attack. The charge against this unfortunate official was not that he is incompetent, or that he had been in any way negligent of his duties as prescribed by Act of Parliament, but simply and solely that he has the temerity to reside in London, which city is distant by a certain number of miles from the much favoured district controlled by the County Council aforesaid. The committee were favoured in their deliberations by the assistance of no less an authority than the “Principal” of a local “Technical School”;—and who could be more capable than he to express an opinion upon so simple a matter? This eminent exponent of scientific truths, after due and proper consideration, is reported to have delivered himself of the opinion that “scientifically it would be desirable that the analyst should reside in the district, as the delay occasioned by the sending of samples of water to London is liable to produce a misleading effect upon an analysis.” Apparently appalled by the contemplation of such possibilities, and strengthened by another expression of opinion to the effect that there were as “good men” in the district as in London, the committee resolved to recommend the County Council to determine the existing arrangement with the Public Analyst, and to appoint a “local analyst for all purposes.” Thus, the only objection which could be urged to the employment of a Public Analyst resident in London was the ridiculous one that the composition of a sample of water was likely to seriously alter during the period of its transit to London, and this contention becomes still more absurd when it is remembered that the examination of water samples is no part of the official duty of a Public Analyst. The employment of local scientific talent may be very proper when the object to be attained is simply the more or less imperfect instruction of the rising generation in the rudiments of what passes in this country for “technical education”; but the work of the Public Analyst is serious and responsible, and cannot be lightly undertaken by every person who may be acquainted with some of the uses of a test‐tube. The worthy members of this committee may find to their cost, as other committees have found before them, that persons possessing the requisite knowledge and experience are not necessarily indigenous to their district. Supposing that the County Council adopts the recommendation, the aspirations of the committee may even then be strangled in their infancy, as the Local Government Board will want to know all about the matter, and the committee will have to give serious and valid reasons in support of their case.

The New Year will see Britain a member of the largest multi‐national free trade area in the world and there must be few who see it as anything less than the beginning of a new era, in trade, its trends, customs and usages and especially in the field of labour, relations, mobility, practices. Much can be foreseen but to some extent it is all very unpredictable. Optimists see it as a vast market of 250 millions, with a lot of money in their pockets, waiting for British exports; others, not quite so sure, fear the movement of trade may well be in reverse and if the increasing number of great articulated motor trucks, heavily laden with food and other goods, now spilling from the Channel ports into the roads of Kent are an indication, the last could well be true. They come from faraway places, not all in the European Economic Community; from Yugoslavia and Budapest, cities of the Rhineland, from Amsterdam, Stuttgart, Mulhouse and Milano. Kent has had its invasions before, with the Legions of Claudius and in 1940 when the battle roared through the Kentish skies. Hitherto quiet villagers are now in revolt against the pre‐juggernaut invasion; they, too, fear more will come with the enlarged EEC, thundering through their one‐street communities.

In pre‐war Russia the canning industry would seem to have been limited to the preparation of canned meat—beef—for army purposes. The average annual output in round figures was 47,500 tons according to K. I. Rubinstein—who last year published a monograph on the canning industry as conducted in Russia—which is equivalent to about 120 millions of standard cans with a nett content of 400 grams each. The demands of the war caused this output to be raised to 150 million cans. Some of the then existing packing centres were at that time moved so as to be nearer to the supply of raw material. Thus new canning centres were opened at Rastov and Stavropol in substitution for some already existing at Petrograd, Moscow, and Kamenetz‐Podolsk.

The purpose of this paper is to extend knowledge on service quality and how it is defined and thus, managed, in the context of maritime transport by proposing and testing a new conceptual model of service quality.

The study used a sample of 197 shipping companies, port operators and freight forwarders/logistics service providers, employing the triangulation of both mail survey and in‐depth interview techniques. A total of 120 usable questionnaires were returned and 25 interviews conducted. Data were analysed using the SPSS 13.0 software and thematic analysis technique.

It was found that service quality in maritime transport is a six‐dimensional construct consisting of resources, outcomes, process, management, image, and social responsibility (ROPMIS), with each dimension measured by a number of explaining factors making up a total of 24 factors. Findings also revealed that factors involving the outcomes and process of service provision, as well as the management factors, which all focus on satisfying the customers, received high ranking. They also emphasised process and management‐related factors which involve the centre of all quality systems: the human element.

As this is the first stage of a more comprehensive study, the model was tested only with service providers, and this is the major limitation. Future research direction is desired, e.g. conducting the study using the same instruments on customers and compare the gaps with this research.

The major contribution of this study is to fully operationalise service quality as a six‐dimensional construct in the context of maritime transport, and findings on the ranking of dimensions/factors involved in the model. Although this is the first model of service quality in maritime transport with specific quality factors, its generic dimensions could be generalised to other service sectors as well. The research also has great managerial implications as managers across maritime transport companies can use the tool to develop questionnaire for customer satisfaction survey, thus facilitating a universal benchmarking approach across the industry.

In view of the Regulations issued on October 4, 1906, by the Argentine Government with regard to the sanitary inspection of meat foods, the Local Government Board, at the request of the Foreign Office, have formulated a number of conditions to be complied with by traders in England and Wales who prepare or pack meat foods for export to Argentina, and who desire that such exportations should be accompanied by an official attestation of precautions taken to safeguard the wholesomeness of the foods in question.