To the Editor of the Norra-Cuina Datty News."
Sir.—The letter from "C. WS." of Chungking, in your issue of June +0, criticizing my exposure of the tad management of the Co- oper five. Wholesale Society and its heavy half-yearly losses demands seme reply, That the decreased spending power of the members is a contributory factor to those losses is no doubt true, In the local ce-Operative society here, as in many elsewhere, poorer members are now unable to pay that extra tax on each purchase subsequently returned to thera each quarter end as "dividend," end are forced to buy their necessities from the great multiple store companies where the only dividend is the maximum value in goods for their money at the time of purchase. These companies, I_ might remind "O, W. *are still being carried on at a Brot In every neried of trade depression the same thing soeurs. The poorer éo-operative member has to do without thoss clothes it is the common cus-yom to purchase on dividend days and deal instead at those shops where foodstuffs are cheaper, ana money will consequently go farther.
"C.W.S." says that I appear to regard a loss of £1,416,615, in six month, following a loss of £3,000,000 ta the previous six months, as "a huge amount" in a business with a half yearly turnover of £38,000,000. Ido and I fail to seq what the turnover has to do with it, For many years, as "C.W: S." points out, the Society has been getting together a huge reserve fund. it ultimately reached nearly 5} milli pounds. In the last 12 months it tas all gone but £642,068. That: is A very serious matter despite the jarge turnover. Nor is it possible te share the feeling of "C.W.S." that the position is mitigated by the fact that £320,350 has been allowed for depreciation. To thos: who not-the excessive prices paid by the C.M.S. for estates, factories and other properties in the boom years that followed the war, that sum for depreciation seems very meagre There is little doubt that the direetors would now be glad to get rid of some of their remarkable "bargains for little more than "half what they paid for them in those feverish yeiws, the huge printing works for instance at Reddith, which they bought from Mesers. taylor, Garnett & Evans.
Tae Trave Unless, It is, however, the penultimate paragraph in the letter of "C.W.S."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.