118 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



in about 1,470 societies. The collective share capital figured at 

 £66,385,566 ; the annual sales at £197,459,114.* The figures for 

 the English Co-operative Wholesale Society for 1918 were 2,854,584 

 members of shareholding societies, £3,195,737 share capital, 

 £65,157,960 sales (now increased to about £90,000,000). In the year 

 1918 the society had made a loss of £16,483, owing to its self-sacrific- 

 ing action during the War, when it catered and distributed goods for 

 the Government and advisedly kept prices down for the benefit of 

 the public. But in the preceding year it had netted a " profit " of 

 £1,150,732 ; and all previous years show a substantial overplus. So 

 strong financially is the position of the society, that it could recently 

 most successfully float an issue of debentures of £2,500,000. The 

 Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society represents, as acting in a 

 country with a very much smaller population, almost greater pro- 

 portional strength. Its working capital, being composed of share 

 capital (£623,674), reserves, deposits, and insurance funds, stood in 

 1918 at £5,773,569, its annual net sales at £19,216,763, its net 

 " profit " at £481,318. 



The value to the nation of these two societies has been brilliantly 

 demonstrated by their services to the community during the Great 

 War. It has raised up a magnificent fabric, supplying almost 

 literally every one of its numerous members' very varied wants, 

 among such insurance, which insures people's lives at a nominal 

 cost of only 5 per cent, of the premium income — as compared with 

 25 to 50 per cent, in joint stock companies — maintaining its own 

 great banking department, farming some 50,000 acres in this 

 country and more in Canada, having, its own plantations in India, 

 Ceylon, and elsewhere, its own colonial possessions for the supply of 

 raw material for its large soap works and the like, keeping its own 

 flotilla of ships to carry its goods across the seas ; its gigantic corn- 

 mills, in which it grinds its corn ; and its immense depots in which 

 are stored, ready for distribution, vast quantities of goods of every 

 description, agricultural requisites of every sort included. 



From their great centres the two large societies mentioned cater 

 for their co-operative clientele of somewhere about four millions of 

 people, saving them millions of money in the year, greatly assisting 

 them in the education of their children, emancipating them from 

 previous bondage, and raising them in every respect. What great 

 value the societies may in emergencies represent to the nation is 

 evidenced by the services which they have rendered without stint 

 or consideration of self during the past Great War. 



* The corresponding figure for 1918 was £248,979,685. 



