ROUND TABLE CLUB

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 68, 17 September 1936, Page 18

ROUND TABLE CLUB

YESTERDAY'S LUNCHEON

CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT

An interesting address on the cooperative movement in industry was given at the Business and Professional Women's Round Table Club luncheon yesterday by Miss Huntingdon, secretary to the Co-operative Wholesale Society. ■

Miss Huntingdon said that she felt she could best approach' her subject through the Christian commandment, "Love thy neighbour as thyself." So Jong, she said, as profit-making for the individual was the chief object in business, . this Christian, injunction would,be impossible to carry out. Competition, the life of profit-making business, must create the spirit of f'doing the,other man down.". Tlie co-opera-, tive system of business had begun in the early twentieth, century, the time of Robert Owen, when 2$ miners and their wives, victims of a strike and

lock-out, decided to, change conditions for themselves: and others. By hard saving for a year they managed to amass £28 capital which they invested in staple ioodi and, .products such as sugar, tea, .flour, andLcandles. The tiny venture was si. success, any small surplus of ..money being distributed amongst;the 28 shareholders, and from this effort had, spread a movement which has reached many/countries, notably^ Sweden, where the. principle has developed, to a remarkable .extent and made for much, stable prosperity. In America the co-operative movement was sweeping the Middle West and was being strongly backed by President Roosevelt.' In England there were over 7,200,000 shareholders, controlling 15 per cent, of the turnover of Great Britain. In New Zealand the movement was spreading rapidly, and .groups were continually applying for ■organisation tb:the central control. "WOMAN WITH A BASKET." Miss Huntingdon explained that goods were purchased by their controlling organisation and .sold at current marked prices in their own group stores to the shareholders, any surplus of profit being handed to the shareholders every six months in the form of a dividend, this naturally depending on the size of the turnover of the particular group. The movement was non-sectarian and non-political, and was based on the practical theory that |if people could be fed, clothed, and housed in comfort then life would be free to develop through aesthetic, mental, and religious. channels. . The movement especially appealed to women; being the home buyers. In. England. they had adopted a slogan,. "The woman with a basket." Wherever there was the spirit to work and organise for mutual assistance the co-; operative . movement supplied the method of organisation. .. .; . .A .very, hearty vote of thanks was carried by. acclamation.