EMPIRE FARMERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 375, 8 June 1928, Page 9

EMPIRE FARMERS

CALL FOR CO-OPERATION WHEAT POOL CONFERENCE (Australian Press Association.) OTTAWA, Thursday. Some vigorous arguments in favour of more effective co-opyrative organisation among the farmers of the Empire were advanced to-day in connection with the Wheat Pool Conference. At a dinner given to the delegates this evening, at Regina, Saskatchewan, Mr. Judd said the Australian voluntary wheat pool handled in 1927 over a third of the total marketable wheat in Western Australia, where the farmers had loyally supported the scheme. He said he received a cablegram stating that 40 per cent, of the quota required for the South Australian contract for the pool had been attained, and it was hoped to have GO per cent, of the acreage signed before harvest. The success was considered to be due largely to the influence cf the visit of the Canadian delegates. The delegates were the guests of the Canadian Club at a luncheon. Sir Thomas Allen, of the British Empire Marketing Board, spoke of the growing need of each section of the Empire for the other. Empire business must be reciprocal in character. The conference should discuss a national programme of world production of all farm products and the standardisation and uniformity of quality. The economic future of the Empire was bound up in the willingness and ability of the people of each part to organise for greater production and higher quality for prepared and finished commodities. Messrs. A. W. Golightly and John Oliver, of the English Co-operatlvo Wholesale Society, urged the farmers to organise a co-operative wholesale* society. Mr. Peter Malcolm, of the Scottish Co-operative Society, said 60 per cent, of the people ate co-operative bread, and wanted to deal with co-operative farmers. They were all asked: “Do you farmers, with your vast resources in economic merchandising organisations, propose to destroy the co-opera-tive activities of Britain by putting the prices of your products beyond our means?” All answered in the negative.

The Premier of Manitoba, Mr. John Bracken, at the evening session of the conference, said: “In 10 years, if you do your duty, co-operation will be a great movement in the world for the amelioration ot the economic conditions amon* Sie masses of rural people.”