CO-OPERATIVE V. PROPRIETARY CONTROL.

Waikato Times, Volume 96, Issue 15041, 14 September 1922, Page 6

CO-OPERATIVE V. PROPRIETARY CONTROL.

( To the Editor). " Sir, —As one of the farmers who belongs to a class that are not business' men, I should like to put my rural ideas, obtained from the ti-tree arid tussocks, before the public. Firstly, I believe that it is the duty of every farmer in New Zealand to link up with the farmers’ co-operative concerns. It is not «their duty to keep out of the farmers’ only protection—:co-opera-tion, and throw stones at the management and help to destroy their own interests. Every farmer, should get into the farmers’ co-operative movement and improve the management, and this will bring about better results and greater efficiency. When all our live stock and products are handled by ourselves under a real co-operative system, we can then control our own banks, shipping and insurances, and we then could appeal to Mother England for our exports to be protected from the profiteers, so that our revenue could be brought up to a standard to pay our national obligations. To-day it matters not how the manufacture of our products is carried out, either under co-operative or proprietary methods, because as soon as our goods are landed from our ships they are then controlled by proprietary interests or speculators. When our products land in England they are assailed by a frontal attack from England’s trading bulls and a rearguard action from profiteering bears. Then, when our goods arc encircled in the ring of bulls and bears, it is pull devil pull baker, and when they have pulled, fooled and pooled long enough to suit both parties, they v lix the prices at which these sorely-taxed products have to be sold. Surely the day will soon dawn in New Zealand when it will become obligatory for every farmer to have his produce handled by a farmers’ co-operative company? Without farmers’ banks, shipping and insurance companies, and an understanding from England to protect our markets, w'o might as well take the line of the least resistance and live under the patronage of the trusts. Should tliis be our fate, then if our products are to be handled by so-called cooperative and proprietary interests, they should arrange a conference with the trusts for a combined marketing system.—l am, etc., E. F. SHAD BOLT. Hamilton, Sept. 13, 1922.