1 Ave., 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 159 
companies as sound as any in other countries and colonies. We have in the 
Lockyer a farmers’ co-operative company started with £1000, £500 of which 
was the value of the property, and the balance the paid-up shares. That society 
has proved to be an immense success, not only in the way of supplying us with 
stores, but also im assisting us to put our produce on the market. Our 
agricultural societies should endeavour to more than hold an annual show, for 
that is all the majority of them at present do. They should endeavour to assist 
each otherand try to bring about co-operation, so that, say, the Mackay association 
would assist the Lockyer society to put Lockyer produce on the Mackay market, 
and vice versd. If our societies were to work on a proper basis, they would be 
able, without any great cost, to act as agents for one another to place produce 
upon the market. Why shoula not a co-operative store in Mackay send their 
orders for sugar to Mackay, and why hail not our produce be placed upon the 
Northern market without going through agents? Last year at Rockhampton 
I went through the produce stores, and it so happened that I recognised a 
consignment of chaff that had left Laidley some 6 weeks previously. It was 
sold at Laidley for £1 19s. a ton, and was being sold at Rockhampton at £6. 
If our societies were to put their shoulders together, that produce would be 
placed upon the Rockhampton market for 50 per cent. less than it was. 
Mr. J. E. Noakes (Maryborough): Both the Maryborough Dairyin 
Company and the Bundaberg Co-operative Butter Factory are doing well; “ie 
with regard to the question of cheap money, I may say it is hard to get private 
individuals to lend money on farms. For one thing, the mortgagee is liable for 
6 months’ wages for any people working on the place; an advantage in the 
Government being the lender would be that it would not sell the borrower up 
so quickly as a private institution. 
Mr. J. E. Leask (Gooburrum): As one of the directors of the Bundaberg 
Co-operative Butter Factory, I must say that it has been a great success. We 
have £2,300 taken up in shares. It is two years since we started the factory, 
and we have now over 150 milk-suppliers, the factory being a great benefit to a 
great number of small farmers whose land was really nof fit for agriculture. 
Our profit last year was £100, and at the end of this month we hope to be able 
to show a particularly successful half-year. Co-operative concerns depend a 
good deal upon the men who run them; and I am pleased to say that, so far as 
I can see, we are making a success of ours. We are, moreover, doing good to 
the district, particularly in the way of attracting new settlers. 
Mr. H. Carrermutn (Woongarra), in reply to the last speaker, said that in 
his opinion the profit of the Bundaberg Co-operative Butter Factory was more 
on paper than in reality. 
Dr. THomaris (Cairns): Two papers have beenread—one by Mr. Peek, and 
the other by myself. They may be cognate, but they tend to different things. 
The object of Mr. Peek’s paper is to improve the present condition of co-operative 
societies, and, if that is the purpose for which he read it, it is a goodone. Agri- 
cultural associations in Queensland are open to very much improvement, and I 
think Mr. Peek’s paper will tend to that improvement. My scheme is purely to 
create agricultural capital—to assist us to create capital for ourselves, out of our 
own security, for our own farms. My paper proposes to you to decide to-day at 
this Conference whether you want to create your own money—of course, to do 
it through the Government, because we are still too small to do it ourselves. 
My scheme is not to borrow cheap or dear money : it is to create our own money, 
from our own property, our own security; and we only ask the Government, say, 
for ayear or so to doit for us, or rather to start the machinery going—to turn 
the steam on—and then we will be able to do it ourselves. I am not here to ask 
State aid or State money. I am here to demand our own money. That is what 
I said 22 years ago before 2,000 delegates from all parts of Europe, from Sicily 
to Finland; and we got it. IT was then called a visionary, as I have been to-day, 
but we gotit. I believe thatthe present Ministry, who are taking great interest 
in agriculture, intend bringing a Bill before Parliament in connection with this 
subject. I do not care whether it is my Bill, or anyone else’s, so long as it 
