18 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Juxy, 1898. 
the Railway Department should not meet them on a fair basis. With regard 
to New South Wales products having an advantage over Queensland, owing to 
the lower railway rates there, it should be borne in mind that a good deal of 
the produce from the sister colony was, owing to the duty, practically shut out 
from Queensland. 
Mr. Josep Hupson (Rosewood) had on more than one occasion suffered 
pretty severely at the hands of the auctioneer and middleman. If he sent 
down to market a consignment of inferior produce and a consignment of 
superior, the prices realised for the two would be but little different. In fact, it 
would not pay him to get his produce up in a high-class manner. At present 
the middleman and auctioneer ran the markets, and farmers, under existing 
conditions, could not get at them. ‘he only remedy he could see was in 
co-operation, and with this he thought a good deal could be effected. <A. 
gentleman had stated co-operation would not make much difference in the 
price a farmer would receive for his produce, but on this point he differed from 
Mr. Bytheway. In the first place there is a tremendous difference in what the 
farmer gets for his goods and what the consumer pays for it. It generally 
amounts to one-third, and not unfrequently to one-half. Who gotit? The 
consumer suffered, and the producer likewise. Like some of those who had 
already spoken, he had lost money over the farmers’ union established in 
Brisbane. The fault in that union, however, was that it began as a co-operative 
society and dwindled into a commission agency business. Farmers soon found 
they could sell their produce just as cheaply elsewhere as through the union, 
which rapidly became a commission agency, and one of the worst. If a man 
sent his produce to ‘an ordinary auctioneer, he got his cash quickly, but the 
farmers’ society was very tardy. in sending along its cheque. ‘This latter, 
especially, was a reason why farmers sent their produce to private agents. 
Mr. P. Dwyer (Tenthill) could endorse the remarks made in Mr. 
O’Keefe’s paper, although he had also lost money in the Farmers’ Co-operative 
Society which had been referred to. As instancing the way, however, in which. 
that particular society was managed, he mentioned that even its chairman of 
directors did not dispose of his produce through the medium of the co-operation. 
Mr. T. Wurretey (Coowonga) mentioned that Mr. Coulson’s idea of having 
a market where the consumer could buy direct from the producer was to be 
seen in practical operation in Rockhampton, and, on Saturday morning, he 
would be happy to take delegates across the street and show them such a 
market. Like Mr. Robinson, he also thought agricultural societies should take 
up the matter of the collection of farming statistics. The secretaries were 
generally in contact with the farmers, and they would probably be able to obtain 
_ the necessary information easier than the divisional boards. ‘The sending out 
of circulars would, perhaps, be too expensive. With regard to the middleman, 
a recent experience of his (Mr. Whiteley’s) had been the sending up country of 
4 consignment of produce to an auctioneer four months ago, but he had not yet 
received any money for it, nor in fact had he ever heard anything about it. It 
seemed to him that the gist of successful co-operation was to get straight- 
forward and honest men at the head of affairs; also men who had been 
through the mill—men who had been farmers, and who could feel for and 
sympathise with them, knowing what they had to put up with. The directors 
should be similar men; and if they found their manager was not what he should 
be, they should have another man in his place at once. Co-operation was very 
necessary in the Rockhampton district, and they were now trying there to float 
a general farmers’ co-operative society, which was to commence at first in the 
shape of a dairy factory, and then gradually work out to embrace other 
branches of the agricultural industry. 
Mr. Jorcensen (Pialba), in the course of an interesting speech on the 
subject of marketing and co-operation, mentioned that on one occasion he had 
sold a fairly large parcel of butter toa storekeeper for 8d. per lb. Half-an- 
hour afterwards the butter was sold at 1s. 2d. per lb.; Mr. Jorgensen 
getting 8d. per lb. for keep of cows, milking, manufacture and carting into 
