Tuapeka Times.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1813, 18 July 1891, Page 2

Tuapeka Times.

AND QOLOFIELDB REPORTER **n VOVERT^ER.

SATURDAY, JULY 18, 1891.

" MEASURES, NOT MEN."

Mr W. Christie, of Toiro, ia to be complimented for the clearness aud ability with which, he placed his views ou " Cooperation " before his audieuceat Waitahuna on Saturday evening. Equally complimentary is it to tho members of the local Farmers' Club that in this, as in all matters affecting the interests of their class, they have set an example worthy of wider and more general imitation. Mr Christie's lecture may not have the direct effect of resultiug in the establishment of a Co-operative Association, but it will stimulate thought and reflection and enable further advances to be made in the wide field which the discussion of such a subject opens up. At present most farmers know by experience, which teaches the most practical as well as the most abiding of all lessons, the defencelesaness of their position, and how helpless they are to protect themselves from the impositions of the shoals of middlemen who stand between them and the consumers. Each man in his own way knows how exasperating are the methods resorted to by this resourceful class ; he knows well the relentless forms their modes of extortion take, and how much of the proceeds of his hard, unremitting labour are annually seized upon by these bascilli of commercial life. There is scarcely an accommodation or the ghost of a socalled service which his helplessness compels him to accept at the hands of the middlemen, for which he is not made the victim of the grossest extortion. All these things are as familiar as household words to the farmer. No need to urge him to a study of this phase of the question. He sees straight before him, as in a glass, darkly, all the nefarious tricks and stratagems *by which he is despoiled of a large percentage of his profits. Of course this warfare of the predatory middleman is all fair and open, as the torms go. Custom legitimises many queer things, and necessity, stern and unrelenting, very often blinds men to the grossest extortion of which they are the victims. The companionship of the middleman, and the charges and commissions and percentages on which he flourishes have been so long familiar to the farmer that he seems to think there could be no commercial or trading life without them. "We have quite as strong a faith in the ultimate acceptance of the principle of co-operation by farmers as Mr Christie ; but we fear that it is as yet rather premature to expect any practical steps being taken in the direction of forming a Co-operative Association. There are, we have no doubt, many of the more intelligent and active men among the farmers who are ready to enter heartily into the project at once. But the nndertaking, it should be remembered, is not merely a local affair, and needs something more than the support of a small sprinkling of farmers in a few districts. It wants, in the first place, substantial monetary support, and after that it requires not only that the mass of the farmers should be well-disposed towards it but that they should be in a position to patronise and support it. Whether the mass of the settlers are in a position to do so to the extent necessary to make the institution a success is quite another question. On this point one of the speakers at Saturday's meeting was of opinion that they were financially incapacitated from doing so. This may be true in a limited sense; but it can hardly apply to the large area over which the transactions of the Association would be expected to extend. But it is ! first necessary that the principles as , well as the advantages of the co-opera-tive system should be more widely disseminated and more generally understood than they are at present before anything like a general movement may be looked for among the farmers. In this respect the farmers' clubs have it in their power to do much; and unless they take the matter up and adopt it and give it a prominent place on their programme, it is not likely to make much headway. Better still would it be were the Executive of the New Zealand Farmers' Union to take the subject seriously in hand and take some practical steps to ascertain the feeling of the farming community throughout Otago on it. What has been done in Canterbury, as Mr Christie remarked, should also be capable of accomplishment in Otago. And that it has not been done before now, there can be little doubt is principally owing to the fact that systematic means have not been taken to bring the advantages of the system forcibly under the notice of the settlers. This, in its present stage, is the kernel of the question. Mr Christie has certainly done his part not only in bringing the subject prominently before the public, but in doing so in a manner that is sure to be productive of effect ; and if it were possible to find a few more such able and enthusiastic advocates, the question would not be long before it assumed a practical shape.