142 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Ave., 1899, 
would be actually withdrawn or advanced. All loans to be for a fixed period, and the 
interest paid half-yearly or at other stated times. The only “State aid” or superyi- 
sion required would be the annual audit and inspection. I feel sure that once the 
benefits of People’s Co-operative Banks come to be known, and forma part of the work 
of our established associations for the benefit of the agricultural industry we are repre- 
senting to-day at this Conference, so soon will a new and prosperous future be opened 
to the “men on the soil.” 
The management of such associations is of necessity the most important. It has 
been argued that ourfarmers are not educated in business matters; that there will be 
divided counsels; that the requisite confidence will not be placed in their respective 
secretaries or managers sufficient to make success a certainty, and that therefore it will 
be impossible to compete with the individual capitalist. Such objections appear to be 
theoretically unanswerable, but they will be completely refuted by the examples of 
suecess which can be found in the countries of the old world, and even in Australia, 
where such associations are now formed on sound lines, without undue influence of one 
shareholder over the other, and where only the greater amount of business transacted 
may give more in financial returns to one member than to another. If such institutions 
were started in connection with our societies, where the credit of a member is endorsed 
by two or three other members, who guarantee that the loan so applied for is to be put 
to such uses, it must have a most beneficent and marked effect in the progress and 
development of our agricultural resources. 
_ The first co-operative body established in the old country commenced 
operations at Rochdale. This was followed immediately afterwards, by the town 
of Leeds starting a co-operative flour-mill, in the year 1849-50; and although these 
two societies had in 15 years from the start done business to the extent of more 
than £1,000,000, they had not to set off £10 for bad debts. The societies of Ttaly 
are a marvellous example of what can be done by combined effort. In the year 1883, 
afew persons met in a back room in the city of Milan, whose joint capital only amounted 
to the modest sum of £28. (This was the exact sum that the Rochdale 
pioneers, by a strange coincidence, started with.) But the Co-operative Bank 
of Milan to-day has a share capital of :£600,000; employs 100 clerks, 140 to 
150 honorary officers; and an immense sum passes over its counters every year— 
all lent to the poor and industrious peasants of Italy to develop and create employment 
and wealth for themselves. In the Empire of Austria, the Government have passed a 
Bill (1896) a Co-operation compulsory amongst farmers. So great is the benefit 
conferred by this legislation that in the year 1895 the official returns issued showed 
there were no less than 1,916 co-operative societies established, and in the same year 
no less than 994 credit banks. I can also refer to the agricultural people’s banks of 
Ireland, which were started by the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, which 
commenced operations at Doneraile, in County Cork, in the year 1895, having for its 
objects “to improve the condition of the agricultural population of Ireland” by 
teaching the principles and methods of co-operation as applied to farming and its allied 
industries, and which have been a great help and assistance to the poorer agricultural 
classes, who are enabled to borrow on personal credit or on the security of others from 
the village bank. The timely assistance given enabled “ poor Pat” to do a great deal 
on his little farm or holding which he would otherwise not haye been able to do. 
Coming nearer to our own doors, I could draw attention to the success of the Farmers’ 
Co-operative Societies of New Zealand, Tasmania, South Australia, and New South 
Wales. For one illustration, I will refer to the Co-operative Wool and Produce 
Company of Sydney, whose commission charges are 3} per cent. on sales, and who, on 
their second season’s sales from 33,066 bales of wool consigned to them, showed a net 
profit of £5,394 4s. Id., or a saving of 3s. 63d. per bale on the usual woolbroker’s 
charges of 6 per cent. Surely then this question of extended association work, for 
its economic value, is worthy of every serious consideration and practical 
support. By co-operating together, if only for marketing purposes, the complaints 
that are now heard on every hand of the excessive rates and charges for the disposal 
of our products, and which are an unfair and burdensome tax, would be no longer 
heard. It is the charges that are now being made that have reduced the margin of 
profit to the producer to such an extent that the development of the agricultural 
industry is seriously retarded. But if our associations and societies will awake from 
the apathetic state into which some seem to have fallen; if they will decide to be more 
practical and keep abreast of the times ; if they will start such institutions as are being 
advocated all over the world, by which the producer is to become a working partner in 
a thriving joint stock concern, the latter will be at once advanced into a different social 
grade. He will no longer be the hard oyer-worked, wet or dry, from daylight to dark 
phednees who toils on from year to year, without any cessation, to progca crops that 
have in some cases to assist in keeping four or five other individuals (before reaching 
