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Show BRITISH CO-OPS LAUGH If J FACE OFUOLEfU Wholetale Buying' fol Benefit of Consumer Direct Di-rect Date Bxk to Wear. , ers' Morement in 1844 ' By MILTON BRONNER. LONDON. Au 11. Wboa a room full of poorly paid Enfliio, waavorp ot tog-atbar In 1144 and form ad a coo para tl vo aociaty a llttla grocary ahop of thalr own. and tharaby saving sav-ing nonay for themsolrsa on things purchased, thay had no TUIon of a big; wbolasalo eoopsratlva aociaty ' also.. Tho latter came aa a matter of . ovolutloa. It reapondad to a vary J real needof tbs yarloug retaM operativaaooietloa tbat sprang; Inta being- In England. The retalu brought about the nee esslty of the wholesale society. Thay oreated Its market. ' Thay gathered Its capital. They sulUvated Its Held. The reverse process oould not possibly pos-sibly occur. In other words. It would not be possible deliberately to form a wholesale cooperative aociety which In turn would fostsr retail societies. NECesSlTY BROUGHT IN. Tbs wholesale aociaty waa known In England waa not a matter of da-liberate da-liberate planning. It grew out of a desperate need. The little struggling retail cooperative .octettes "lound themselves In trouble. They were being boycotted by eomo of tho big wholesale grocers who either would not sell to them at all. or demanded rigorous trade -conditions, or favored their rlvala, the other privately owned retail grocery stores. Bo sixty years ago, as Boon a parliamentary restrictions were re-moved re-moved by proper leglelatlon, forty-eight forty-eight retail cooperative eocietlea laid tho groundwork for what waa afterward aft-erward to be ehrlatened "the Cooperative Co-operative Wholesale Society, it began be-gan active business In tho following year, 1144. Tha avowed purpose wss to free ' tbs retail societies from the shscklea and to get away from tha mlddldk men who took a profit before the goods reached them. To this enA the Cooperative Wholesale Society adopted the policy of going direct to the producers of foodstuffs. WAREHOUSC AT MANCHESTER. It pent Its agents to Ireland, whare thoy bought milk, eream. cheese, ecsa and baoon from the Irish farmers. farm-ers. Tho aamo thing was Oone in Denmark. The same thing waa . done in England Itself. y It waa necessary to have ebmef central point at which It could warehouse Its stock of goods. Manchester, Man-chester, metropolis of tha great manufacturing district of England, waa choaen aa tho main headquarters, headquar-ters, largely because tho bulk of tho retail societies were In the manufacturing manu-facturing towns. Later other head-quarters head-quarters wars opened In Newcastle and London. But to thla day tha chief office and warehouses are concentrated In Manchester. In the neighborhood ,of Balloon street huge five and six-story six-story red brick buildings aa solid aa Imposing, aa costly aa any In tha great city, are tangible evidences of tha tremendous business tha Cooperative Co-operative Wholesale Society noes. From dealing directly with tn producers of foods, the wholesale society turned naturally to tha next logical step. It became a producer and; manufacturer Itself. As tho retail re-tail societies grew tn numbers and demands tha directors of tho wholesale whole-sale society could flgur on a largo snd growing market for certain kinds of things that were always consumed, no matter what happened to the country. So gradually factory fac-tory after factory was erected, owned and operated by th wholesale whole-sale soclsty. EFFECTIVE DURING WAR. During the war It rendered an fmme-ise serrlca to Its customer by l-reeptng down the prices of goods. Vot Instaacs, once war was declared profiteer sought to kite too prk-4k of flour and augar before govern, ment could take any action. But ItV happened that the wholeeala society had on hand big stocks of thee commodities. It kept Its prices reasonable rea-sonable and thereby forced down tho prices for all . tha paopi or tn country. . The worst period In th concern' history was tn tha years Immediately Immediate-ly following tha war'a end. It had . been compelled to purchase wheat, jf augar and other commodities st highly Inflated prices. Thsy wer war prices. Then came deflation with outa In price. The peace prices wsr considerably below th war prices. This meant a direct loss In money to the wholesale society. so-ciety. It was further Injured by tb big Increase In taxation. Other bodyblowe were tho tremendous tre-mendous unemployment In England and th hug cuts which wer mad la wages. When a million and a half of tha working rlasa wars Jobless and when millions more were drawing lower wages. I the retail cooperative societies and -th wholesale society felt )t acuta- ly. They not only lost many cus-tomors. cus-tomors. but thos whom they retained re-tained bad a decreased purchasing power. I What thla really meant can be told tn two sentences. In !! tho net ' sales -of th wholesale soclsty were over a half billion dollars. In 122. owing to tho world crisis In Industry and tho fall in commodity price, the wholesale society sold 304 million I dollar leap 'pooda. pmrnsH nnsi-i pabei. lONDOM. Aog. It By A. P There ere apekea In the British empire em-pire today more tenfues thsn prs-vslled prs-vslled at tha time of the aeetrue-tton aeetrue-tton of the Tower of Babel, according ac-cording to Profeeeor Panlel Jeneaw an authority en lasguasea - In the entire empire, a savsV thers are from SAO to lee die-lacs lenguages. . India alons has 400. : a.1' |