SCOTLAND COMES TO THE RESCUE.
At this time the position in Belfast warranted fully the optimistic tone in which Mr Gilchrist had spoken three months earlier of its future. The society had been established for fourteen years and its sales were rather more than £30,000 a year. It was not their size, however, but the rapidity with which they were growing which led to the optimism of those who were responsible for the management of the society. In one year they had grown from £5,000 a quarter to £10,000 a quarter. From the one tiny branch in Shanklin Road the society had grown until it was now the owner of four branches, and the members continued to join the society in large numbers. All this the delegates had found out during their visit to Belfast, and they considered that the facts justified the recommendation they were making—that a branch should be established there.
In bringing the recommendation before the delegates the chairman stated that Belfast Society was purchasing at the moment from 400 dozens to 500 dozens of bread weekly, notwithstanding the fact that the bread was a day old before they received it. The membership of Belfast Society was 1,200, and was increasing rapidly, and both manager and committee were of opinion that the trade would be doubled if they had a bakery on the spot which could supply them with new bread daily. While a sum of £2,000 or £3,000 would be sufficient to erect a bakery which would meet present requirements, the idea of the Federation directors was that sufficient land should be acquired and they should build on a plan which would permit of expansion in the future. The directors, he concluded, were unanimously of opinion that not only would a branch bakery be of immediate service to Belfast Society, but that it would consolidate and strengthen the whole movement in the North of Ireland, while it could be established without any serious risk to the Federation. The motion that the proposal of the directors be approved was moved by Mr Duncan of Kinning Park, who had moved the rejection of the proposal to give assistance three months earlier, and the recommendation received the unanimous approval of the delegates.
Thus the fateful decision was taken—a decision which, as Irish Co-operators will be the first to acknowledge, was fraught with possibilities of immense good to Ireland, possibilities which have fructified into actualities as the years have passed. The decision strengthened the hands of Belfast Society at the moment, but it has done far more during the period which has intervened, for the powerful aid which the U.C.B.S. has been ever able and ever willing to render has made it possible for the Irish societies in the North, at a time when no one of them was overburdened with capital, to devote what capital they did possess to the extension of their businesses in other directions, secure in the knowledge that the staff of life was assured to their members for such period as they were able to make reasonable provision for the payment of the services thus rendered.