360 AWAKENING OF ENGLAND. 



as well as for fruit and vegetables, open not 

 only to members of co-operative societies but 

 to every farmer or grower, large or small ? 



There are many people who are not 

 aware of the tremendous sway exercised by 

 auctioneers over private markets which are 

 sometimes their own. I know, for instance, in 

 the south of England, a certain large market- 

 place over which one auctioneer holds an 

 undisputed sway, and this auctioneer, like 

 many others, is himself a large breeder of 

 pigs and cattle. No one knows to whose bid 

 the hammer sometimes falls, and even if private 

 auctioneers are not directly interested in the 

 selling of cattle at low prices, they are some- 

 times indirectly interested. A friend of mine 

 once heard an auctioneer coolly turn round to 

 his clerk in the middle of selling a beast and 

 say, " We must let So-and-so have this or he 

 will be grumbling again." Rings of dealers we 

 can hardly help — they may be formed any- 

 where — but we can at least see that our cattle 

 are not sold in privately-owned markets and 

 that the auctioneer goes there with clean 

 hands. 



What the producer asks for is a fair field 

 and no favour. Markets, indeed, should be 



