ATTITUDE OF MANUFACTURERS 373 



creased the demand for agricultural necessaries, 

 and has allowed of big orders being got direct 

 from the societies, without any expense in regard 

 to travellers or agents, and without any risk of 

 bad debts. The only persons who need be afraid 

 are the dishonest traders whose seeds, fertilizers, 

 or feeding-stuffs will not bear the test of those 

 strict analyses which a society is so much better 

 able to exact than an individual purchaser. The 

 wisest manufacturers, therefore, will be those 

 who hasten to make friends with the agricultural 

 societies — which represent a coming force that 

 cannot be withstood — instead of opposing them 

 with u rings " or other difficulties, persistence in 

 which must simply mean that the societies will 

 either manufacture for themselves, or else make 

 their purchases abroad. In fact, the foreign 

 manufacturers, with their experience of what 

 good customers agricultural syndicates may be- 

 come, are already coquetting with the English 

 societies with a view to securing their patronage. 

 If, in spite of all that I have said, farmers on 

 the one hand, or manufacturers on the other, 

 may still have their doubts as to the value of 

 these purchase societies, or the amount of trade 

 they may represent. I would commend to their 

 notice an article in the Empire Review for 

 December, TJ03, by Mr. Theobald Douglas, on 



