THE Pukekohe and Waiuku Times PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS. "We nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice." FRIDAY, MAY 19, 1916 CO-OPERATION AMONG FARMERS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 175, 19 May 1916, Page 2

THE Pukekohe and Waiuku Times PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS. "We nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice." FRIDAY, MAY 19, 1916 CO-OPERATION AMONG FARMERS.

l'h? history ot co-operative supply associations run by farmers in the Auckland district has up to the present been anything but a record of successes. Several have been established, and after a more or less chequered career for a short time have been wound up. In each case the failure has been principally due to two causes, inefficient management and insufficient capital. Ibis is the more to be regretted, because every such failure makes a certain number of member? disbelievers in the efficacy of cooperation, and renders more difficult the Dotation of similar associations

Against just such difficultie?, but backed up by the loyalty of adherent?, who, in their determinant) to make their association succeed, continued to do business with it even when offered better terms by outside dealers, the Trading Branch of the Farmers' Union has carried on for the Isst few years. It would now seem as it a brighter day had dawned for it, for the management has undergone a complete change within the last tew mouths, and the Association has now takrn the momentous step of inviting its members to provide it with sufficient capital to enable it to deal direct with the manufacturers of farmsis' requisites, and be no longer at the mercy of importers who have their own profits to look to.

There is no need to labour here the benefits tfce farmer can receive from carefully conducted cooperative buying and selling. Every farmer fully understands that a mercantile business is not run for philanthropy, but for profit, and that if he owns his own business, and it has command of sufficient capital and is conducted as intelligently a3 the ordinary mercantile house, he can retain in his own pocket the profits he has hitherto had to disburse to the middleman, And in such a business as that of farmirg, where the market is fixed solely by the inexorable law of supply and demand, these profits not infrequently consume the whole ot tha margin between the cost of production and the receipt* for the produce. We believe that under its present management the Farmers' Union Trading Association is run atJeast ae Wilfully and catclully as the averse business house. It only remains with the inmiteis to provide sutlk'ienl capital to enable the management to make its purchases m the Lest markets, whether at home or abroad. Jo such a pros pcrous district as the Association serves there to be no difficulty m lindiog ample ticancial •upport now that confidence lias been so largely restored, and by this time next year we hope and believe we shall be publishing the rumrds ol a thoroughly successllll IiSBEO'.

11 the As oeiution be wish it ahoub 1 , we think, confine its activi-

ties to providing the tarnier with the requisites necessary to Ins business oulv. such as implements,

seeds, manure, fencing wire, etc Grocerie?, chllnng, and the thousand arid oue c3inn;o:lities he uses in common with tbc re6t g! tte community can still be best supplied to lorn fiv l' 1? ret.nl dcalniH, among

whom there i-* euHieienl citmprtitinn to make it certain that he will not be undulv overcharged. Many country storeueepers make no more

than a bate living, and the losa of even a percentage ot the farmers'

custom would crush out of existence numbers ot a class who are not only useful but absolutely indispensable to most country districts