I02 Agriculture and the Community. 



barrows, and the waste of labour of men, women and 

 children all increase the cost to the consumer, render the 

 work of inspection and control difficult, and multiply the 

 risks of infection. The following quotation from a report 

 issued by the Labour Party on " Labour and the Milk 

 Supply " gives some idea of what the waste is: — " The 

 methods of distribution are wasteful in the extreme. In 

 Derby, for instance, the sales of milk in October, 1919, 

 averaged 32,000 gallons per week. The sales of the 

 Co-operative Society were close on 17,000 gallons, i.e., 

 more than half the total supply. There are two hundred 

 and twenty-four retailers to supply the remainder. The 

 Co-operative Society have only sixty-three men and 

 seventeen women selling milk from barrows, and four men 

 with horses and floats, and yet they visit more than half 

 the houses in the borough. Moreover they maintain that 

 with forty-five to fifty more barrows they could undertake 

 to visit daily every house and replace the two hundred 

 and twenty-four retailers." 



In Glasgow when the last controlled prices were fixed, 

 and in the efforts made by farmers and milk distributors 

 tO' regulate prices since control ceased, i/- a gallon was 

 allowed for the distribution to the consumer. If private 

 enterprise cannot do it for less, that merely demonstrates 

 the costly wastefulness of private enterprise and the need 

 for better organisation. Nor should we forget that the 

 waste is not merely in labour. A milk distributor at a 

 Wages Board meeting defending the cost of distribution 

 added the significant remark, " You forget how much we 

 have to pour down the drain." 



