ABSTRACT
The Co-operative Union the great majority of them are, as we have seen, connected with tire chief propagandist body of the movement; and to the network of its organization, which the Union spreads over the whole country, reference has been already made. The present Co-operative Wholesale Societies of England and Scotland is the sequel to earlier attempts made to provide the retail societies with the facilities for advantageous buying that a wholesale source of supply, controlled by and managed in the interests of the societies, can furnish. The English society, for instance, sends duly qualified auditors to audit the accounts of some eighty of the retail societies, a function that is probably destined greatly to increase in importance. The success of the Wholesale Societies is thus ultimately almost as much due to the same diffused sentiment that first led to the establishment of the local distributive stores as to great individual capacity.
