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In the discount store area, foreign large retailers such as Wal‐mart, Carrefour, and Costco fight hard with domestic retailers in Korea. The Korean customer is a judge in the centre of such a difficult fight. Therefore, foreign retailers who are willing to win the game should pay attention to what Koreans say and respond to the complaint as fast as they can. This study monitored e‐complaints of customers towards Korea Carrefour through analysing contents of the bulletin board in an anti‐Carrefour site. Upon examining e‐complaints by category and retail attributes, there were found to be more complaints in electrical goods and food and groceries by product category, and in employee attitudes and store atmosphere by retail attributes. The implications for successful retail strategies of foreign discount stores in Korea are discussed and further research is suggested.

Eighty‐five participants attended the 4th ISHM Display meeting at the Jaarbeurs Congress Centre in Utrecht on 16 October, 1986. The programme of the day started with the annual general membership meeting of the Benelux Chapter. The chairman, Mr T. Kwikkers, gave a short review of the state of affairs of ISHM‐Benelux and of the activities of the last year. He mentioned the temporary enlargement of the executive committee to give a new generation a chance to gain experience in the ISHM organisation and to take up some new activities. In order to raise publicity for ISHM and Hybrid Circuits a new brochure has been designed and a set of material for demonstration purposes was collected. With the material every member of the chapter can easily set up a presentation for schools or customers. This year ISHM‐Benelux has grown from 85 to 100 members and enjoys a healthy financial situation. Next year again emphasis will be put on public relations. Professor R. Govaerts signified that he was no longer available for a position in the executive committee. As Prof. Govaerts has been very active and stimulating for the ISHM‐Benelux Chapter from its foundation in 1976 up to now, the general membership meeting decided to appoint him as (the first) honorary member of this chapter. Except for Professor Govaerts, the sitting executive committee, consisting of 15 members, was re‐elected for another year. After the European conferences in Bournemouth and Hamburg the ISHM‐Benelux chapter is asked to organise the 1991 Conference. The executive committee is already looking out for candidates for a function in the organising committee, which must be formed in the coming year.

Millions of the British people have for some years now been struggling valiantly to live with hard times, watching them day by day grow worse but always hopefully that the cloud had a silver lining; that one day, reason and a sense of direction would prevail. Tyranny in many forms is a feature of history; the greatest epics have been risings of ordinary people to overthrow it. The modern form of tyranny is that of Money; the cruel and sinister ways in which it can be obtained and employed and the ineffectiveness of any measures taken to control the evils which result. Money savings over the years and the proverbial bank book, once the sure safeguard of ordinary people, are whittled away in value, never to recover. Causes always seemed to be contained within the country's own economy and industrial practices, and to this extent should have been possible of control. The complex and elaborate systems constructed by the last Government were at least intended for the purpose, but each attempt to curb excessive demands for more money, more and more for doing less and less— the nucleus of inflation—produced extreme reactions, termed collectively “industrial strife”. Every demand met without compensatory returns in increased work, inevitably led to rises in prices, felt most keenly in the field of food and consumer goods. What else would be expected from such a situation?

Things seem to be going desperately wrong with the concept of the “brave new world” predicted by the starry‐eyed optimists after the Second World War finally came to an end. To those who listen only to what they want to hear, see everything, not as it is, but as they would like it to be, a new society could be initiated and the lusty infant would emerge as a paragon for all the world to follow. The new society in truth never really got off the ground the biggest mistake of all was to cushion millions of people against the results of their own folly; to shelter them from the blasts of the ensuing economic climate. The sheltered ones were not necessarily the ordinary mass of people; many in fact were the victims and suffered the consequences. And now that the state has reached a massive crescendo, many are suffering profoundly. The big nationalised industries and vast services, such as the national health service, education, where losses in the case of the first are met by Government millions, requests to trim the extravagant spending is akin to sacrilege in the latter, have removed such terms as thrift, careful spending, value for money from the vocabulary.

Very much more might be done to improve the quality of our food supplies by the great organisations that exist for the avowed object of furthering the interests of traders in foodstuffs. It is no exaggeration to say that these organisations claim, and rightly claim, to speak in the aggregate on behalf of great commercial interests involving the means of livelihood of thousands of people and the most profitable disposal of millions of money. The information that they possess as to certain trade methods and requirements is necessarily unique. Apart from the commercial knowledge they possess, these organisations have funds at their command which enable them to obtain the best professional opinions on any subjects connected with the trades they represent. Their members are frequently to be found occupying positions of responsibility as the elected representatives of their fellow‐citizens on municipal councils and other public bodies, where the administration of the Food Laws and prosecutions under the Food and Drugs Acts are often under discussion. Such organisations, then, are in a position to afford an unlimited amount of valuable help by assisting to put down fraud in connection with our food supply. The dosing of foods with harmful drugs is, of course, only a part of a very much larger subject. It is, however, typical. Assuming the danger to public health that arises from the treatment of foods with harmful preservatives, the continued use of such substances cannot but be in the long run as harmful to the best interests of the traders as it is actually dangerous to public health. The trade organisations to which reference has been made might very well extend their sphere of usefulness by making it their business to seriously consider this and similar questions in the interests of public health, as well as in their own best interests. It is surely not open to doubt that a great organisation, numbering hundreds, and perhaps thousands of members, has such a membership because individual traders find it to their interest, as do people in all walks of life, to act more or less in common for the general advantage ; and, further, that it would not be to the benefit of individual members that their connection with the organisation should terminate owing to their own wrong‐doing. The executives of such trade organisations hold a sufficiently strong position to enable them to bring strong pressure to bear on those who are acting in a way that is contrary to the interests of the public generally, and of honest traders in particular, by adulterating or misbranding the food products that they gain their living by selling. It should also be plain that such trade organisations could go a long way towards solving many of the very vexed questions that arise whenever food standards and limits, for example, form the subject of discussion. These problems are not easy to deal with. The difficulties in connection with them are many and great; but such problems, however difficult of solution, are still not insoluble, and an important step towards their solution would be taken if co‐operation between those who are acting in the interests of hygienic science and those who are acting in the interests of trade could be brought about. If this could be accomplished the unedifying spectacle of alleged trade interests and the demands of public health being brought, as is so often the case, into sharp conflict, would be less frequent, and there can be no doubt that general benefit would result.

THIS is the month when the public librarian again faces his annual estimates. Things are rarely exactly easy for him. This year may be no exception, as there will be in some places an effort to lop off the non‐essential works of local authorities. It is at this time that some librarians wish the service ceased to be local, because town councillors as a whole believe so much in the local character of government and do not realize that if they reduce on such things as libraries they are placing their own people at a disadvantage in relation to other towns. That is the soundest reason, and one that cannot too often be stressed, for some sort of imposed standard of service, which cannot be varied too greatly because of some temporary condition of local or national finance. We do not anticipate crippling reductions anywhere, but the signs for advance are not more propitious than in the bad old days. We shall be interested to hear of special cases this year, but hope that they will be few. We know that salaries cannot, at present, be greatly affected, but even librarians do not live for pay‐cheques alone; they want books, light, heat and many more things to revive, if not to improve, their service.

AT the Conference at Folkestone of the London and Home Counties Branch of the Library Association, Mr. Jast gave one more example of his old fire and vigour in a paper which he entitled Publishers and Librarians. No doubt in other pages than ours the text will be given in full. Here, in summary, we may say that he dealt with some of the needs of librarians and readers for well‐produced editions of good books which for some reason were obtainable only in double‐columned small type or otherwise almost unreadable or at any rate unattractive form. He instanced Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature. He urged that if a sufficient number of public and other librarians represented this want to publishers, promising that the libraries would support such an edition, it was unlikely that the request would be ignored. A further suggestion arose from the established fact that in the welter of editions of certain books many were ill‐produced and unworthy to be placed in the hands of unsuspecting bookbuyers. Robinson Crusoe was a case in point, and as many parents desired their sons to read this they were often persuaded to buy editions which were unsuitable. Here he made a suggestion which is entirely practicable: that the Library Association should examine all of the common classics for form and for textual accuracy—a feature in which he alleged that some were deficient—and fix on suitable editions, allowing the publisher to add to their title‐pages “approved by the Library Association.” We seize upon this point first because there is nothing Utopian about it. It is a work that ought to be done.

In an article on “Scientific Societies and Alien Enemies,” which appeared in the May issue of The British Food Journal, we expressed the hope that every British Scientific and Technical Society would take immediate steps to expel all foreign members who are to be numbered among the enemies of Great Britain and her Allies, and that each Society should pay special attention to the necessity of purging itself particularly from any existing German taint. Having stated that we were waiting to learn what had been done, or is to be done in this matter by such bodies as The Chemical Society, The Institute of Chemistry, The Society of Chemical Industry and the Royal Society— mentioning only a few of the institutions in whose lists of members the names of enemy aliens appear—we took occasion to point out that the Chemical Society and the Society of Chemical Industry, especially, were probably in need of drastic purification. Since that article was written it appears that the Council of the Chemical Society has taken the matter into consideration and, in this connection, we have been requested to publish two letters addressed to the President of the Society by one of its Fellows together with the President's reply. We comply with the request in view of the facts that the points raised by this correspondence are of public importance and that their application extends far beyond the mere question of a controversy within the narrow circle of a particular scientific body. COLONEL CASSAL, to whom we are indebted for supplying us with copies of the letters referred to, makes the following caustic remarks, with which we fully agree, in a covering letter:—“It will perhaps hardly be credited, but the fact remains, that the Council of the Chemical Society of London, one of the oldest scientific bodies in this country, which, on that account, if, unfortunately, at present, on no other, may possibly be thought to be entitled to some sort of public respect— has refused to take the necessary steps to bring about the immediate expulsion of the alien‐enemy members of the Society, among whom it is practically certain that there are several persons who are acting as expert advisers to the German Government in regard to the use, by their hordes of criminals, of corrosive fluids and poisonous gases in contravention of the universally recognised laws of honourable warfare. It will be seen that in its futile endeavour to find an excuse for its failure to discharge a plain duty the Council has hopelessly stultified itself, and there can be no doubt that the vast majority of the Fellows of the Society will repudiate the ludicrous and self‐condemnatory resolution which, at one and the same time, brings contempt on the Society and ridicule on the Council.”

This article explores the childhood, professional life and social activism of Alice Rigney (1942–2017) who became Australia's first Aboriginal woman principal in 1986.

The article draws on interviews with Alice Rigney along with newspapers, education department correspondence and reports of relevant organisations which are read against the grain to elevate Aboriginal people's self-determination and agency.

The article illuminates Alice/Alitya Rigney's engagement with education and culture from her childhood to her work as an Aboriginal teacher aide, teacher, inaugural principal of Kaurna Plains Aboriginal school in Adelaide, South Australia; and her activism as a Narungga and Kaurna Elder. Furthermore, the article highlights her challenges to racial and gender discrimination in the state school system.

While there is an expanding body of historical research on Aboriginal students, this article focuses on the experiences of an Aboriginal educator which are also essential to deconstructing histories of Australian education.