nor would it be pure as we profess to give it. Had the Society intended to enter into competition with the millers, it could have undersold them and made a large profit.

Mr. Peacock and Mr. Moffat, members of the Committee, wanted to know whether the Society took any trouble to find out whether adulteration on the part of their neighbours took place, and to prosecute them.

Mr. Emmerson: The Society set up to conduct an honest business themselves, and not to act as public prosecutors for the town.

It was asked why workmen, who were injured by adulteration, did not prosecute them.

Mr. Emmerson: There was a difficulty in workmen becoming prosecutors. It would be awkward for them, since. they were mostly everywhere in debt with shopkeepers. Besides, how could they give the time to attend three or four days at magistrates' courts, to take out a summons, get up evidence, and conduct the prosecution? A few very independent workmen might do it, but they must make considerable sacrifice for the good of others.

[This even gentlemen did not do on behalf of their poorer neighbours, whom they knew were daily consuming deleterious food.]

Mr. Emmerson incidentally explained to the Committee the domestic habits of Leeds in that day.

Yorkshire people bought their flour, made their own bread, and had their own ovens. The Society had then 3,000 members. They had bankers, merchants, and magistrates connected with the Society, but principally working men. The Society's flour is what we designate "made from pure wheat." The oatmeal is made from pure shellings of oats.

Being asked the question, "Do you never put potato starch into your flour?"

Mr. Emmerson: We never put anything of any description into it, it is all pure, genuine flour, and has been from the beginning.

Viscount Goderich asked: "Is not inferior flour sold at lower prices?"

Mr. Emmerson: Yes, but we make but one kind and of the best wheat. Mr. John Blakey, at Keighley, Rushworth Brothers, of Ingrove, near Keighley, Mr. East, of Nottingham,

and other adulterating millers, were named as having been fined, and some did hard labour who did not pay the fines.

Viscount Goderich, whom we know as the Marquis of Ripon, was on the Committee, so was Mr. Villiers, the present father of the House of Commons. William Scholefield, the chairman of the Committee, was the author of the Act which established limited liability in business, and enabled co-operative employers to share profits with their servants without becoming responsible for their debts, or the servants being liable for their masters' debts. When I was a publisher in the city of London, I shared profits with those I employed, which made them my partners in law. They could carry away my books or property and did it-I had no redress.* Mr. Scholefield's Act altered all this, and made co-operative participation of profit in business, legal.

The millers had their friends on the Committee who were sharp on Mr. Emmerson, and endeavoured to corner and confuse him; but he had his wits about, and very good wits too. His evidence was given with directness, clearness, and force.

Mr. Farrand, of the Rochdale Corn Mill, was also examined. He said "they found persons judge wheat by the colour. They preferred white, which was injurious, to darker flour entirely wholesome. The eye seemed harder to please than the stomach." But as the purchasers became instructed that whiteness was produced by alum and other mixtures, their preference for it began to decline.

Alum, a medical witness explained, has a bad effect upon the teeth, the gums, and the mucous membranes of children. It creates irritability in the bowels, producing constipation and at times the contrary. It was given in evidence that chicory is adulterated with Venetian red and treacle to give it a brighter colour. It also increases the weight. In one manufacturing department 700 tons of carrots and 350 tons of parsnips were used for adulterating purposes.

The Leeds Society was in the same condition as Mr. Emmerson owned to the Committee. Had members or enemies had wit or malice sufficient, they might have destroyed the business any day. A secretary of a Manchester Friendly Society, named Radcliffe, took £4,000 of members' money. The magistrate dismissed the charge of robbery on the ground that he was a member, and a member was a partner.

Here were arguments in plenty in favour of providing members with other articles than flour, sold in a pure state. Had all the dramatic facts and picturesque incidents of this inquiry been selected and circulated in Leeds, it would have been worth £500 to the Society. It was worth that as an advertisement and vindication of the Society in the eyes of tradesmen, adversaries, and members. Readers, high and low, would have read it with amusement, wonder, and instruction. Parliamentary authority was worth a thousand testimonies of partisans, however honest.

Mr. Lloyd Jones's wise motion was rejected by persons who had no outside mind. Mr. Jones had, and knew that the progress of co-operation depended upon the view which the public took, and the impression its proceedings made upon them. It will be seen that working men and their families were being poisoned three times a day by dangerous flour, and were charged more for it than good flour ought to cost, and that by good judgment and combination they had freed themselves from these dangers. Every man becoming sensible of these risks would have been disposed to join the sole rescuing society.

1857.

FROGS ABOUT ORGANISATION OF THE AGENTS-A PENITENT AGENT-CONSPIRACY OF AGENTS-THE BRIGGATE STORE LANGUISHES-VICTORY OF IGNORANCE-THE BRIGGATE STORE DIES-A GREAT TEMPTATION-ANOTHER VINDICATORY AUDIT.

T

HE failure of the Briggate shop, which occurred this year, gave comfort to prophets of disaster. Store keeping had won no success, which alone could silence the guttural cries of those born with frogs in their minds.

The change of title which presaged the sale of provisions still caused perturbation. Then uprose all the inexperienced, timid, foreboding, suspicious, and imputative members. "The new speculation," they said, "would ruin the prosperous society. The directors would never make the new trade

The competition was too keen and too great-besides, they had no knowledge of the new business;" all of which was said against starting the mill. Furthermore, the advocates of the change were accused of "being anxious to make places for themselves." The voices of the croakers were loud in the land. When the march of progress was commenced, the frogs of obstruction leaped about in shoals and did all they could to embarrass the advance, and went very nigh to fulfilling their own predictions.

For the information of the chance reader, it is necessary to recount the constitution and career of the agents who now begin to figure as insurgents.

There was good judgment of business device, in which the Leeds Society has excelled, in the early organisation of the "Flour Agents," the term by which they became technically known. The agent was prohibited from selling any other flour than that of the Society, and at a price fixed by the committee and communicated to him from time to time; so that a purchaser always knew whose flour he was buying, and that the price was not determined by the caprice or the cupidity of the agent, but was the authorised price appointed by the responsible managers of the Society. The agent was paid 1s. 6d. per bag of twenty stones (280 lbs.), a reasonable amount being allowed for leakage. The agent was required to pay into the bank a sum sufficient to cover his order, and produce the banker's receipt. Thus loss was avoided. The agencies were eagerly sought for, though not lucrative; but what gain there was, was without risk, unless the agent gave credit, when it was upon his sole responsibility. Many agents sold from twenty to thirty bags of flour per week, and thus made a fair living; some of them also were, as we have said, small shopkeepers, and sold other goods on their own account. If the price of flour rose, the agent paid the excess upon his stock; if the price fell, he received a rebate upon his stock, but, in a few cases only, an agent would continue selling flour at the higher price. In one instance an agent, who had been allowed £3. 13s. 4d. rebate on twenty bags, continued to sell at the old price the stock of flour on which he received the rebate; but he had, when detected, to refund the amount and lose his agency. The man was not dishonest at heart and always regretted the error into which he had fallen, and it

remained as a serious sin upon his conscience, and on his death-bed he expressed his sorrow for it to Mr. Campbell.

The agency system, above described, remained without change until the Society established stores of its own. The new Briggate store was not at all to the agent's mind. It did not make the progress its well-wishers expected; assailants shot at it from concealed trenches; but the directors were clear in their decision that it must be sustained. They had become convinced that if towns of much inferior extent to Leeds could make a grocery department succeed, Leeds could do it; and they voted £500 more to strengthen the Briggate store, but without success, as the reader has seen. The flour agents were most of them, as we have said, little grocers also, and they naturally resented the creation of the Briggate grocer's shop, at which all members were expected to deal. Their customers for flour, more or less, dealt with them for groceries. Many of the members had what were called "shots," or credit scores, with the flour agents, and could not leave them if they would; and the agent-creditors did not facilitate their release, but bestirred themselves to dissuade members from dealing at the Briggate store. Then they demanded of the Society a commission of 7 per cent, which was given them. Afterwards, a demand of 10 per cent was made. They represented that they had obtained 10 per cent from grocers for selling their goods. They could not warrant the grocers' goods, but they could the flour mill's goods, which meant a preferential increase of custom to them. But of this advantage they were silent. They were accorded the 10 per cent-nevertheless the Briggate store languished.

The Briggate store got worse and worse. A traveller was appointed to wait upon members and families of greater income than working men, to induce them to deal at the Briggate depôt, with a view to establish family trade. But this did not mend matters, nor did it shake the settled co-operative purpose of the directors, who had steered the flour ship through stormy waters. They stood stoutly at the helm of the new craft, which they believed they could steer into smooth seas.

Slowly the directors came to understand there was a rebellion among the agents. They had reared an enemy for themselves. They had created a vested interest, which now turned against them.