104 Agriculture and the Community. 



will be exceedingly difficult work organising the markets 

 from the producers' side, but if it were possible it would 

 not be a good thing from the point of view of the 

 community. A ring of producers might be able to hold 

 the community to ransom. The organisation will more 

 probably come from the distributors' side. We see the 

 beginning of this in what is practically a milk trust in the 

 Lxjndon area. There is even greater danger to the 

 community in such a direction. Both producers and 

 consumers may be squeezed to make profits for the share- 

 holders in the combine. It is not difficult to imagine a 

 meat trust operating in the same way. 



It is highly desirable that we should eliminate the 

 wasteful competition of a multitude of dealers and organise 

 distribution in such a way that foodstuffs are brought from 

 the producers to the consumers with a minimum of cost 

 and waste. The obvious course in dealing with milk is to 

 organise the distribution on municipal lines. Milk is a 

 necessity in regular demand, the consumption of which 

 does not vary greatly from day to day. The municipalities 

 have been compelled to regulate the distribution and to 

 standardise the quality in the interest of the public health. 

 It is absurd that it should have to act as policemen to a 

 number of private traders, when it can quite easily organise 

 the distribution itself. If Clydebank Co-operative Society 

 can supply milk to 78.5 per cent, of the total population 

 within its area, there is no practical difficulty in any 

 municipality undertaking the distribution for the whole of 

 its inhabitants. From distributing milk the municipalities 

 should go on to production on their own farms. They 



