As one who has been brought more or less into contact with the members of the firm from the time when the late Mr Bendix Hallenstein founded the New Zealand Clothing Factory, and thereafter established throughout New Zealand the retail branches of that hive of industry which has for several decades given steady employment to many hundreds of our young people, I should be glad if you will afford me space for a few words on the position which has arisen.
The late Mr Hallenstein and his brothers, whose combined capital was the means of starting the clothing factory business and its retail branches, originally came to Australia, and the foundation of their fortunes was there laid.
Mr Bendix Hallenstein came to Dunedin from Melbourne in the very earliest years of the gold discoveries in Otago and settling in Queenstown, by steady application to the general storekeeping business he started in that goldfields township, prospered.
Thereafter he moved to Dunedin and, as mentioned above, in conjunction with his brothers, and the whole of them having been for years naturalised British subjects, put a large amount of capital into the new clothing factory venture.
This capital cannot with a shadow of justification be called German capital. It was made in British colonies by naturalised British subjects.
In like manner the Hallenstein capital was instrumental in founding the Drapery Importing Company, familiarly known as the D.I.C., and this business also has given employment to large numbers of men and women in the various cities in New Zealand in which its branches are established.
In the course of nature the original founders of these large industrial concerns passed away, and their respective shares in the businesses came into the hands of sons and daughters, born in Australia or New Zealand.
Mr Bendix Hallenstein's daughters married gentlemen who are directors of Hallenstein Bros. and Co. (Limited) and of the D.I.C., one of them a German who for over 25 years has been a naturalised British subject.
To anyone who knows Mr Fels or the present day members of the Hallenstein family it is utterly preposterous to say that any one of them them is anything but absolutely loyal and true to British interests.
If good citizenship and extreme liberality in giving to all worthy objects that come before the community for help count for anything then the businesses of the New Zealand Clothing Factory and D.I.C. should be as heartily and genuinely supported as those of any other traders in the community.
As to the loyalty of the head of these firms to the British nation whose subjects they are, it is of the most complete type.
They are in the first rank with the many patriotic men in this city who have devoted time and money to the Empire's cause.
Hallenstein Bros. (Limited) came forward at the beginning of the war with the handsome subscription of 500 to the patriotic funds; they from the outset encouraged their employees to volunteer for the Expeditionary Force, undertaking to pay all who enrolled half-pay for six months and to keep their positions open until their return.
It is, then, cruel and unworthy of members of this community to give their countenance to the efforts that are being made to damage the businesses of fellow-citizens who are loyal subjects of the Empire; it is a departure from the traditionary British fair-play.
I am, etc. George Fenwick. - ODT, 20.5.14
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