Page 377 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

First Cost or Last Price ?

It is curious that, while Castlemahon was a bone of contention, tlie
Agency Society was not mentioned in the Congresses of the time.
"
Yet it constituted a much more violent form of overlapping." A
federation of co-operative dairy societies for selling butter in England,
with its first headquarters fixed at Manchester, it made, or would
have made, all the C.W.S. organisations in Ireland superfluous, so
far as buying from co-operative creameries was concerned. It
neatty reversed the business of the consumer going to the producer
to buy at the first cost, by substituting a going to the consumer to
secure the last price. Indeed, an I.A.O.S. leaflet quoted in the
text book Industrial Co-operation (p. 158) precisely hoped for a
federation " so effective that it will practically establish a ' corner '
m Irish creamery butter on behalf of the united producers, and
control the market for that commodity." Thus the intention was
no secret, and in fairness to the promoters it should be said that the
agency was not begun without regard to the C.W.S. Toward the
end of 1891 a draft of the proposed rules was sent to Balloon Street
by Mr. Plunkett and Mr. Anderson, together with certain suggestions
for C.W.S. participation; and in January, 1892, the whole question
was discussed at a meeting of the C.W.S. Grocery Committee, plus
Mr. Pearson (the then butter buyer), and the heads of the C.W.S.
Irish depots. At this meeting Mr. Stokes spoke in favour of the new
organisation, stating that he had been invited " to undertake this
agency; " but the C.W.S. Committee, while not questioning the
right of the promoters " to take what course they think best for the
promotion of the Irish agricultural interest," were averse to Hnking
the Wholesale Society with the new movement. The chairman of
the meeting (Mr. T. Bland) described the proposed agency as
" practically a syndicate," and asked Mr. Stokes " if it had occurred
to him that if this scheme succeeded his calling in connection with
the Wholesale would be gone." " If the society (that is to say, the
agency) had been formed to buy foodstuffs, coal, machinery, &c.,
solely, as mentioned in the circular," said Mr. Hibbert, " it would be
a different thing, but as it was he was of opinion it would come in
conflict with those already in the trade." This did not put the
agency necessarily in the wrong, for as much might have been said
against the store movement itself, but it indicated the difficulty there
would be in reconciling two such opposite modes of procedure. In
the economic world at large the producer and the consumer have
sufficient to do for a long time in reducing to his proper proportions
the capitalist who thrives at the expense of both. Within
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