1908.] Co-operation for Small Holders. 



581 



in order that their business may be conducted to the best 

 advantage, how much more is it necessary that the small 

 holders should do so, and so be in a position to buy their 

 requirements and market their produce on the best terms 

 possible ? The small man will be too busy to attend markets 

 or to study them, all his time will be occupied in tending his 

 crops and his stock, marketing must be left more or less to 

 chance, a few flooded markets may cause his ruin, and unless 

 the small men will form themselves into local societies the 

 development of the small holdings movement will be hampered 

 very seriously indeed. 



"To my mind, and I do not speak without experience, the 

 co-operative movement should be developed upon the following 

 lines : — 



" Firstly, there should be one large society for a county or 

 group of counties ; 



" Secondly, there should be small local societies, affiliated 

 to the large one ; and 



" Thirdly, there should be a central bureau or intelligence 

 department, where the managers and representatives of the 

 large societies could meet to discuss questions of policy and of 

 contracts, and to organise an interchange of trade and the 

 marketing of produce. 



"An attempt is being made at the present time to promote 

 joint action between the agricultural co-operative organisations 

 of England, Scotland and Ireland, and if the fact is realised and 

 accepted that the central body must not be a trading body, but 

 a central bureau or intelligence department, it will be of the 

 greatest assistance possible, and will help considerably the 

 agricultural co-operative movement generally. It could be 

 run, too, without imposing any tax, either openly or otherwise, 

 on the trade of the societies affiliated to it. 



" Under a system of the kind the small man would be placed 

 on equal terms for trading purposes with the largest farmer in 

 the country. 



" To illustrate what I mean, the large society to which I have 

 referred, admits small societies to membership on the basis 

 of one 5s. share for every ten members ; one-quarter of the 

 share capital has been called up, which means that the cost of 

 affiliation ^to the large society costs the small society \\d. 



