CO-OPERATIVE TRADING.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXII, Issue 15558, 7 March 1911, Page 8

CO-OPERATIVE TRADING.

- 10 THfc EDITOR. Sir,—Some people are beginning to ask if Mr John Barr has been appointed advertising agent for the newlyborn Wholesale Club, which is to supply all the people with all they want without cost, and at such prices as will return them handsome dividends beioro any undertaker lias a chance to measure them for the little box that is supposed to preserve their bones until they are called upon to give an account as to how much treasure they had laid up while in the flesh, and whether they have hid it in the earth or given it to the poor publican or the ardent or hard-hearted prohibitionist, in respect to tills nou-boiii benefactor to the poor working-man, would it not bo well to just look back a few inchesP Does any on® remember Colombo Street in the heyday of labour, when the cry went forth, “ Patronise your own stores and cease being robbed by the middle-man, the- extortionate shopkeeper P 1 Bid these stores, with all the shareholders behind them, not buy direct from the manufacturers and supply themselves at wholesale costP If not, why not? An answer to this is important, because it is the highest note in the cry of the new-born enterprise. The worker may also recollect a band in High Street that used to ontertain the rush of himself for boots at his own factory shop at such prices that all other competitors ceased selling because they were so ashamed ot the robbery committed in the past. Yes, those were the heydays of labour, the days when he supplied, himself and robbery was not known. He is now going to start again, but lie has grown wiser. The other fellow is going in with him this time, to keep him from sinking under tho burden of profits.—l am, etc., GEORGE BARTY.