THE DINNER.
Mr M‘Culloch presided also at the dinner, at which more than 400 guests were present, including Mr Ben Jones. In his address of welcome the chairman asked the delegates to project their minds into the future and ask themselves what would be the magnitude of that branch of the Society’s business which they were starting that day when they met to celebrate the coming of age of the biscuit factory twenty-one years hence. He also referred to the fact that all the presidents of the Society but one were present with them.
Speeches were delivered by Messrs J. Lochhead, Ben Jones, William Revie, Gabriel Thomson, Donald Cameron (two ex-presidents), Mr Glasse, Mr J. Ferguson, Mr J. M‘Murran, Mr William Barclay (another ex-president), and Mr Malcolm Neil. Mr Jones described London, from which he had come, as “a Co-operative desert,” while, in proposing “Retail Co-operation,” Mr Glasse said that in the Second City of the Empire retail Co-operators were nearly as bad as they were in the first, although during the past five years some headway had been made in the city.