DEVELOPMENT OF TRADE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19104, 27 August 1936, Page 15

DEVELOPMENT OF TRADE

CO-OPERATIVE LINES

DOMINI ON CONFER ENCI

GOVERNMENT'S INTEREST

(Pbr Proas Association.) WELLINGTON, this day

la a message read on his behalf by Mr. B. Roberts, M.P., at the opening of the national co-operative conference, the Hon. D. G. Sullivan" said be felt that one of the greatest bulwarks that could be crented against the exploitation and maldistribution of income was the development of trade along co-operative lines. He gave an assurance that, the Government was taking a keen interest in the activities of the alliance, realising as it did that tiie co-operative movement lay at (he heart of socialism. Socialism had manifested itself in various developments that had not always been co-ordinated, and if seemed to him that the time was ripe for a. general realisation of the need" of linking up and developing those forces that would enable them to tap and effectively distribute the fruits of the earth lying ready to hand.

The Government, said the Minister, would foster any movement that would make distribution more effective and at the same lime restore to the individual that confidence in 1 hnself that had been lost owing to subjection to a system to which he was still laigely a slave. Mr. Uoberls, hi h'.s address afterwards, said that ihe co-operative principle was a higher moral principle than the principle of individualism. Those supporting the co-operative movement in New Zealand were probably harbingers of the next hundred years nf New Zealand's history. Mr. Backhouse, who said that the messages of Messrs. Uoberts and Sullivan were, very encouraging. The organisation wanted encouragement and help and was expecting ii from the Government.