Thr Star WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16, 1920. MARKETING PRODUCE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XXXXI, Issue XXXXI, 16 June 1920, Page 4

Thr Star

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16, 1920. MARKETING PRODUCE.

delivered every evening by 5 o'clock In Haweiu, Manaia, Normauhy, Ukakiwa, Kit ham, Mangatoki, Kapongtt, Awatuna, Uyanake, tstakeho, Manutahi, Alton, HurleyviUtt, tfutea, Waverley.

Considerable interest has been aroused in the proposals which have been made to New Zealand producers to enter into arrangements with the Co-opera-tive Wholesale Society of England for the marketing of the Dominion's dairy produce. Delegates have addressed farmers and producers in various centres, but the press has been excluded from these meetings, and the general public has been denied information on a matter which is of the greatest concern to the whole country.' Why? If the scheme is a sound one, if it is safe, if the overthrow of Tooley Street within five years is good, if the C.W.S. is going to open the way for the producers in this country to secure the highest prices for their produce, then why should information be kept away from the press and the public? The only details, and they are meagre, which we have seen in the press are those published in this issue from the Wanganui Chronicle. Brief cable messages have stated that the C.W.S. is closely connected with Labor and Socialism. We have at hand the fourth edition of "Our Fields, Factories, and Workshops," issued by the C.W.S., Publicity Department, 1 Balloon Street, Manchester, 1919, from which we make the following interesting extracts, and to which we hope every producer who sees this article will pay particular attention, and see whether he thinks it safe or advisable for the producers of this country to sell themselves body and soul to the C.W.S., as we understand the scheme submitted to the private meetings held during the past few weeks implies:

The capital necessary to make it possible for the Wholesale Society to deal in merchandise and erect factories, etc., on a large scale is provided by the local societies. The members, of course, provide the capital for the local society. The ordinary members, therefore, provide the capital for the C.W.S. to carry on its extensive business of buyers and sellers for the movement and of growers and manufacturers. . . . The C.W.S. does for the worker in the things' named what an amalgamation of trade unions does for the local trade union societies in trade unionism.

The share capital of our C.W.S. was, at the end of 1918, £3,195,737. The loan, deposits, etc., capital was £12,521,884. The reserves amounted to £2,965,547. The total capital (the above items put together), therefore, was £18,683,168. This means that all members of local societies who are members of the C.W.S. have a share of this £18,683,168. Perhaps—well, we can quite hear, as it were, some miner, or spinner, or weaver, or mechanic, saying, "Ah, but where is it?" It is just where your private employer's capital is: in fields, factories, mines, workshops, warehouses, etc.

After going into some details of the C.W.S. manufactures and various trading concerns the publicity writer says: '

These lists may have seemed a dry recital of facts ■ and figures, but they are our own. Do they not whet your appetite for more? Do you not perceive in them a growing foundation and superstructure of the Commonwealth we are surely building?

Under the heading "The Co-opera-tive Commonwealth" it is stated : These pages give in a brief, and sketchy manner the co-operative basis for the establishment of a new Commonwealth. The geographical area covered by the C.W.S. for trading purposes (which does not include Scotland) embraces 1202 retail societies, practically all being members of the C.W.S., or owners of the C.W.S. The number of members of the 1202 societies at the end of 1918 was over three millions, the shareholding societies of the C.W.S. having in 1918 2,854,584 members. Measured by the number in each family connected with each shareholding society, we have a co-operative population in England, Wales, and Ireland of eight to ten millions in touch with the C.W.S. in one way or another. TSis is a fairshare of the entire population of the three countries.

The man in the street probably does not know the C.W.S. as he should do. If he has any imagination he will realise that through it, and by it, he can bring distribution and industrial production almost entirely into his hands. The acquisition of these powers cannot be done without the consent of him and his fellows. By this consent, and loyalty to what he consents, he can become, in a collective capacity, the owner of fields, factories, and workshops. By development on these lines he can regulate the just wages of the workers, the hours of the workers, the'general condition of the workers, and can, in fact, set up his own institutions for the entire regulation of his own affairs. Already the C.W.S. is the greatest and most powerful working-class trading and manufacturing body in the world.

We have nearly 20,000 acres right away in sunny India and Ceylon, where we grow tea sold in our stores near the mills in which we work. We own land in West Africa from which we can produce raw materials for certain of our industries. We possess 10,000 • acres in Canada for wheat growing. In land owning, too, we stand for Britain for the British; also the Empire for the Empire. ... Indeed, we now own and control over 33,000 acres of agricultural ]and in green England, our native land. Thus, we are getting on. We are getting at the sources of supply. We must grow all we need, manufacture all we need, distribute all we need. That is, we must do these things ourselves for ourselves, and we are doing. .. . We shall "arrive" in time, to use a bit of Whitmanism!

Do you know that our C.W.S. bank has a turnover of £383,000,000! We can,_ through the C.W.S. bank, through its insurance departments, through its factories, its warehouses, its fields, and forges, and what not, consolidate the magnificent forces of the working classes into one vast, purpose of common ownership of tlie requirements of life and happiness. It is a justly proud thing to be able to control one's facilities of life and the enjoyment of life provided by nature, by science, by art, by sport, by social intercourse. But we—we, the workers of the world —can do it only by collective action—indeed, ladies and gentlemen, only through the

ownership of .fields, factories and workshops suck as the C.W.S. —our C.W.S. —is establishing from month to month, from year to year. And so on.

How do these extracts square with the statements made at the private meetings and at Wanganui on Friday last? We do not think that the proposals made to the New Zealand producers to deal exculsiveiy—that is what they amount to —with the C.W.S., a strong Socialist combination, can be in the Dominion's interests. Is aSoeiaJist cooperative concern likely to be willing to pay producers the highest prices for their products? And if New Zealand producers agree to the scheme, and if Tooley Street were cut out and the C.W.S. later failed to pay prices'equal to the open market, where would New Zealand be with Tooley Street closed against her producers? The whole matter is one of the utmost importance, and we sincerely hope that before the producers, who are to meet at Palinerston North next week, commit themselves to what appears to Be a Socialistic trust, they will weigh the facts we have quoted very carefully, compare them with the report of statements at Wanganui, and send to Palmerston North delegates well informed and instructed. One thing, we think, should be demanded—that the press be admitted to that meeting. It is a duty to the general public that they should be given full information on such a vitally important matter, for the whole of the Dominion's welfare and progress are bound up in its produce.