CO-OPERATION IN IRELAND

New Zealand Tablet, 17 July 1913, Page 53

CO-OPERATION IN IRELAND

At the reception given in Dublin to the British Farmers' Association, at which Mr. T. W. Russell presided, Mr. R. A. Anderson, Secretary of 1 the 1.A.0.5., submitted a paper on 'Co-operative Dairying in Ireland.' Ireland, Mr. Anderson pointed out, was gradually perfecting the organisation of her dairying business in such a manner as to enable her farmers to hold their own in competition with dairy farmers of other countries. It would be sheer affectation on his part, he stated, if he did not claim for the 1.A.0.5. the lion's share of the credit for the progress that had been made. The fact was not denied. Even their opponents admitted that they had been the most powerful agency in transforming the ancient home industry of butter-making into a factory industry. The aim of the organisation was to convince Irish dairy farmers that the success of their industry must depend upon their ability to produce an article which could hold its 'own against the products of other countries. They in the 1.A.0.5. placed no reliance upon sentiment as far as their customers were concerned, but, as sentiment entered largely into almost everything in Ireland, they appealed to the members of their

co-operative creameries, one and all, to do their part in upholding the ancient reputation of the island as a butter-making country. They did not appeal in vain. ;" The most recent returns of Irish exports showed that in 1911 Ireland exported 688,362 cwt of butter, valued at £3,671,264, by no means an inconsiderable item in the agricultural production of the country. These figures did not include the very large volume of business which was being done through the medium of the parcel post, nor did they include what was required to meet the -increasing home- consumption of creamery butter. British taxpayers were deeply interested in this'development. They had already pledged their credit for upwards of £100,000,000 for Irish land purchase, and before the scheme under which the ownership of all the agricultural land in Ireland would be transferred from the landlord to the tenant-farmer was completed they would probably have to pledge their credit for £100,000,000 more. The sole security for the interest upon and redemption of this huge sum was the ability of the Irish tenant farmer who had bought his holding to meet his obligations to the State. The punctuality with which the newly-installed peasant proprietors in Ireland had met their obligations under the Land Purchase Acts had been remarkable and encouraging; but it must: not be forgotten that they had enjoyed a period of prosperity, ever since land purchase became an accomplished fact, and that this \ period may not continue. They in Ireland did not lay claim to any special wisdom in Imperial matters, but they could not shut their eyes to the fact that any day an international complication may arise which would cut off from British markets more than one of its main sources of supply of dairy produce, and forcei England to look to Ireland for supplies. They could not be entirely self-supporting, but the more food produced within their shores the better for their farmers and the better for England's teeming millions.

Fourteen years ago there were but 181 co-operative creameries in Ireland, turning out butter to the annual value of £750,000. The latest published report of the 1.A.0.5. showed that the number has increased to 413, with a trade turn-over for 1911 of over £2,000,000, a membership of 45,725 and a capital of £257,553. Organisation Toll. Every creamery joining the butter control scheme had .to satisfy the 1.A.0.5. as to the efficiency of its management, to agree to pasteurise its milk or cream, to maintain a condition of absolute cleanliness, to ripen its cream by means of pure culture before churning, to guarantee that the percentage of moisture in the butter produced did not exceed 16, to send bi-monthy samples of its butter for bacteriological analysis, to retain samples of every churning for inspection, to make periodical returns of its trade, to affix to every package a label bearing the trade mark of the control, and to keep records of every transaction in such a manner as to enable any package to be traced back to its original source. For the privilege of participating in the scheme every society was obliged to be affiliated to the 1.A.0.5., and to pay a toll of at least one penny per cwt. on all butter sold. It must not be inferred from this that any attempt was being made by the 1.A.0.5. to increase prices to the consumer. The production of butter in Ireland, quite apart from the large question of the introduction and extension of winter dairying, was capable of very great development. It was estimated that their cows produced on an average about 450 gallons of milk per annum. The Danish cow produced almost twice as much, but she was simply a milk-producing machine, because the Danes had little or no interest in the beef-producing industry. That consideration could not be ignored in Ireland, where the cattle trade was by far the biggest item in trade export statistics. He saw no reason, he said, why. the export of butter from Ireland should not be increased double the present figures,' or even more.