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Show British Cooperative Buying and Marketing Organization Covers World With Operations n yy I A "COOP BISCUIT FACTORY. By MILTON BR0NNER. LONDON Aug. IS. In America we think w know something about big business enterprises, hut it la doubtful whether we have anything in our country which excel or even approaches th farreachlng activities activi-ties of th Cooperative Wholesale society. Just, th raindrops maks th creeks, and the creeks make the swelling rTver. so the pennies of the working people of England pour , : info the shops of tha retail cooper- i stive societies and three in turn ' Into the coffers of tha Cooperative Wholesale society, making mighty enterprises possible. The officers of tha C. W. 9L soon saw thst if they were to get goods at low figures they would have to cut out tha middle man. That meant two things: DEPOTS ALL OVER WORLD. ' They would have to purchase directly di-rectly from tha producers. They would have to become manufacturers man-ufacturers themselves. In the first in at s nee they at once established buying agencies) all over tha world. Today the concern con-cern has Its own purchasing depots in all five of the great continents, and It hag Its own fleet of four ataeuat v easels and tea lighters. 1 i and printed matter and glass bottles. bot-tles. HAS ITS OWN FARMS. Tea Is such a universal beverage In Great Britain that too Cooperative Cooper-ative Whfilesels society soon bo-came bo-came convinced It waa uneconomical uneconom-ical to buy from planters. Ths thing to do was to become a planter plant-er Itself. So It joined hsndg with tha Scottish Cooperative Wholesale society, which covers 'Scotland as the C. W. 8. does England and Wales. Today tney own Jointly 70s acres of tea lands In Ceylon. 2t,7e acres In south India, 17,440 In Assam, making a grand total of 4 ft. S..0 seres. Learning by experience that It paid to do Its own farming, tha C. W. S. gradually purchased big farms aU over Great Britain. Today To-day It owns 14 71 acres, the valus of which Is over twelve million dollars. dol-lars. On these farms a considerable consider-able portion -of ths fruit, peas, tomatoes, to-matoes, etc, 4s grown and sent directly di-rectly to ts own preserving aad canning works. . The Cooperative Wholesale society so-ciety today employe over S3, 004) persons, exclusive ef those who work for It overseas. Jts salary roll is over twenty-six million dollars per year. Tha value of the product prod-uct manufactured In its own factorlea fac-torlea ta over 110 million dollars par i annum. , Th first factories were very small. Today tha C. W. S. tds England with Its plant a H has nine flour mills with an annual output worth over $4a.0O0,-600. $4a.0O0,-600. The other things It manufactures manufac-tures for Its retail societies are provender and oil cake, biscuits, crackers, candy, cheese, margarine, lard, bacon, preserves, picklce vln- . N- agar, yeast, cocoa and chocolate, drugs and chemicals, tobacco In all its forma sl kinds of cotton and wool textiles, hoeiery, rope and twine, clothing snd underclothing, corset a, boots and shoes, leather, furniture, hardware, bicycles avnd motorcycles, brnshee and mat a soap, paint, saddlery and harness, trunks and bags, cblnaware, bovk |