RURAL CO-OPERATION.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 18 August 1924, Page 7

RURAL CO-OPERATION.

BALANCES AND BONUSES. ACTIVITY AND APATHY. There is one season of the year when the farmer loses his wonted" serenity, shakes off his accustomed placidity, and, buttoning up his coat, sallies forth to joust with directors in the lists of annual general meetings. Empires may totter, governments f All, urban councils or drainage boards do their worst, but he remains comparatively cold. It needs the reception of the balance-rsheet of his co-operative company to awake in him all those hostile feelings which have lain dormant throughout the year. Here at last is the “winter of his discontent made manifest,” and he proceeds to grow hot and restive, feeding the fires of his discontent with such inflammatory fuel as apparent discrepancies in the baalnce-sheet, the incapability of directors, and that old, old grievance, tests —not those, it may be stated, about which we read so much in the press. There is a hard saying to the effect that an Englishman is never happy unless he is miserable. It would be going too far to say the same of the farmer, but he does relish an opportunity of luxuriating in grievances against his own. The fact that the concern he fulminates against is his own may perhaps impart a gusto to his attack.

Someone reamrked the other day that there were two things he never aspired to be —a director of a dairy factory and a football referee. There is very "little to choose between them. Perhaps the referee has the harder part, but at least he has autocratic powers never conferred on, though sometimes arrogated by, directors. The arrival of the balance-sheet and the declaration of the bonus is the signal for the outbreak of hostilities. Unce the latter, that long-awaited, much-discussed, over-mortgaged bonus has been worked out—perhaps Avith a nail on the nearest post—certainly with feverish anxiety, then the floodgates of his Avrath are loosed, and the balance-sheet is delved into, pored over, dissected and denounced for the incomprehensible mysteries it contains, and the extraordinary manenr in which it has devoured the' extravagant surplus expected by all. Those balance-sheets! How they baffle the poor unmathematical farmer! How triumphantly he drags to Tight some inexplicable item only to have it suavely explained away at the meeting.

Truly should chairmen have due praise for the facile manner with Avhich they handle figures (and men), if not for their unselfish devotion to public interest.

“One often lvonders Avhat directors buy, one half so precious as the goods they sell.” Certainly it is not fo‘r the usually small monetary recompense, nor for the gratitude of applauding multitudes, these “butcher them to make a farmer’s holiday.” THE GENERAL MEETING.

With most small dairy companies the day of this meeting is observed as a general holiday—not as a day of rejoicing—rather in the spirit of people Avilcoming derisively a meeting with some bitter opponent. Apprehensive directors take care to feed their supplies before the fray—hoping perhaps to temper the coming wind to their as yet unshorn fleece, though the suppliers probably consider that they are those who have been shorn, or “fleeced.” Careless, or carefree, directors, on the other hand, do not trouble to cater for the common herd beyond providing them Avith a banquet of figures. They know too Avell that the attendance is always in inverse ratio to the bonus, that a satisfactory “pay out” means a poor attendance. One meeting of this sort is very like another. It. is Avhen the formal business is over that the entertainment, if there is to beany, commences. The Aveather-beat-en, stern faces of the gathering relax, and they prepare to be amused —to play their “quips and cranks” against the “nods and becks and Avreathed smiles” of their board of directors. Apart from the usual question and complaints about tests and transport and such familiar matters, it is astonishing how much administrative, commercial, and technical knowledge the aggrieved suppliers have to their figure aggrieved suppliers have to their finger tips. Pertinent queries about boilers and pressure, the lagging of pipes, escaped ammonia, bookwork and tests, bring many heated retorts—the whole atmosphere savours of the chemical at times—from AA’ell-informed gentlemen on the platform. The more pertinent the question the more heated the reply, and greater the amusement of the spectators; for such is the role assumed by the majority, content to dem r e a few hours’ amusement, having paid for it from the diversion afforded by the heated controversies, losing sight in the meantime of the object of these arguments. MUTUAL CO-OPERATION The other day a vehicle passed me, draAvn by a horse Avhose sidelong gait dreAv attention to the fact that only one trace ivas fastened. The other trailed uselessly on the road under the conveyance. How typical, 1 thought, of the attitude of many fanners to their own interests ! They will not, of cannot, pull together the farmers’so-called union is an instance of this—and especially is this with regard to their own institutions The Avilling horse co-operation shagging the farmers’ burden, directed by the men Avho have surmounted, as a rule, their oavh burdens; hut instead of Having all the fanners pulling t}he traces, half drag behind, pulled °willynillv over mire and stones, and sometimes run over by their burden, the cart. Co-operation among themselves appears to take place but rarely. They talk belatedly of it when an opportunity has passed. When dissatisfaction exists Avith the factory they supply, . instead of pulling together and making an effort to remedy the evil, they take the course of least resistance and leave their oavu factory to supply another, perhaps right out of their district.

It is lamentable exhibition of failure to grasp the great spirit of cooperation, yet it constantly occurs. Their criticism is rarely constructs, usually destruetS. When Avill the farmers cease to look upon their cooperative concerns as just as grasping as commercial firms, Avhose first interest, rightly or Avrongly, lies in satisfving their shareholders. The dairy farmers have hut one interest to Avatch, that is their oAvn, the suppliers. But it would seem to he a fact very incompletely grasped by great numbers of farmers.