158 - QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Ave., 1899. 
prefer to invest it themselves in some other way; or if they do loan it to their 
neighbours, they take good care to get full valueinreturn. For myself, I think 
the assistance can be rendered by the Government. Thousands of acres of 
land have been selected in the colony, which were taken up, under great diffi- 
culties, but in the majority of instances most of these selections have been 
paid for. When they were un roductive, the farmers paid for these lands, but 
now they are productive and the farmers have got them to themselves, surely 
they should be good security for a fair amount of money that might be loaned 
to the farmers to stock and cultivate them. 
Mr. R. Greson (Ayr) advocated cheap money, instancing irrigation as a 
branch of farming in connection with which it would be specially beneficial. 
Mr. W. Tuomeson (Childers) : I think there are some good points in connec- 
tion with Dr. Thomatis’s paper, but with regard to Mr. Peek’s scheme I do not, for 
the life of me, see how he is going to float a company that will be of any utility. 
Tf a man wants to borrow £500, the bank is broken; and to raise £500 altogether 
by the scheme, it would have to be started in a district with a very thick popula- 
tion. Ihave had some connection with co-operative companies, particularly 
with one at Maryborough, and another in my own district. In the early times, 
before any cane was planted in the Isis Scrub, the farmers formed themselves 
into a co-operative company. The shares were put on the market, half were 
taken up, and the affair went on for about 6 or 7 months all right. The store 
they had, however, got chockfull of produce; so full, in fact, that the directors 
made an inquiry into the affairs of the company. The manager was dismissed, 
and one of the directors took charge. He then brought all the stuff up to 
Mackay for sale, and on his return said that the whole proceeds did not pay the 
expenses of the trip. That about saw the end of that co-operation. If you 
want money, you had better get the Government to start a bank with a capital 
of £4,000,000 or £5,000,000, lend it out at a low rate of interest, and then you 
have something practicable, but I want people to understand these co-operative 
businesses are not worth the paper they are written on. Have nothing to do 
with them. I have been in two others, and lost money through them. At 
present I am in a co-operative butchering affair. It has been the soundest 
of the lot, but, although it was started three years ago, I have not yet gota 
dividend from it. 
Mr. M. O’Kerrre (Blenheim): I speak from a producer’s point of view, 
and I hold it is not right for the farmers to be continually going to the 
Government for assistance. I think it is within their own power to remedy 
their disabilities; and the solution is in co-operation. For the success of 
co-operation, you have only to refer to the neighbouring colonies. You have 
only to go to the Tweed River to find the flourishing co-operative dairying 
factory at Byron Bay. There, the monthly cheque of many of the shareholders 
is £100. Then there is the Farmers’ Co-operative Company in New South 
Wales with a yearly turnover of £300,000, and we have all heard of the great 
Manchester Co-operative Company. Co-operation at Gympie has proved a 
success, ag it has also been in my own neighbourhood. The difficulty is that 
the farmers will not be united—that they will pull one against another. Whether 
this is the cause of their hitherto isolated position, I shall not say ; but this brings 
me up to the fact that these.Conferences are going to do more good than was 
anticipated. They are bringing people together from all parts of the colony, 
and by the interchanging of ideas a good deal of the ignorance that has been 
shown in the past among the farmers will be done away with. People will be 
able to see the way to rectify their own grievances and act without going to the 
Government, for so long as we have no, independence of our own so long will we 
remain in a poor position. I am a very earnest co-operator, and I never yet 
heard a man raise his voice against co-operation who was not interested in the 
middleman’s trade. Do not run away with the idea that I hold socialistic views, 
for I think that instead of trying to crush out the middleman we should meet 
him as business men to business man. If we try to crush him we will probably 
fail, but I have not the slightest doubt that we can establish co-operative 
