The Northern Advocate Daily MONDAY, AUGUST 12, 1935. CO-OPERATIVE TRADING

Northern Advocate, 12 August 1935, Page 4

The Northern Advocate Daily

MONDAY, AUGUST 12, 1935. CO-OPERATIVE TRADING

Registered for transmission through the post as a Newspaper.

The success which lias attended the trading department of the Ruawai Co-operative Dairy Company is notable. It was a sub* ject of discussion at the annual meeting of the company, held on July 31, when opinion was divided as to whether the company was justified in running what is really a big departmental store, and so interfering with private enterprise. The trading operations of this company, and of a number of other dairy companies, are on the lines of the co-operative movement in many parts of the world. This movement has grown to dimensions in the older countries, and even in New Zealand it is obtaining a hold. The last English mail gave interesting information about co-operative developments in Sweden, where the Swedish Co-operative Union has just purchased for £300,000 a fashionable departmental store in the heart of Stockholm. The Swedish co-operative movement is a movement by and for the people. It was started with a few small retail shops owned by Avage-1 earning consumers. These people j hoped to make savings in purch-j asing and assuring themselves of

quality standards in the goods , they' bought. Each shop was owned and managed by the consumers. Little notice was taken of the movement at the time, but the retail shops continued to grow in size and numbers, and before many years had passed the Swedish Wholesale Society came into existence. This wholesale society was run on the same democratic lines as the retail shops. Its members were the retail units. Through this organisation, which attacked and broke down monopolies, the consumers went still further until they opened their own factories and mills. Until recently, it was thought that the co-operative movement would be restricted to the small retail shop, but in the decision to take over and run a modern departmental store the organised consumers have chosen to attempt another experiment. Whether it lias acted ivisely, time alone can reveal. This development, however, provides food for thought by members of co-opera-tive dairy companies in New Zealand which have carried trading operations as far as the Rnawai Coinpany has done.