Six All Your Geese Are Swans 1905

CHAPTER SIX

All Your Geese are Swans

New Zealand’s population was approximately 1,000,000 at the turn of the 20th century, with approximately 30 per cent of the total workforce involved in agricultural employment. It was clear that the focus was on making agriculture the mainstay of the economy and to move into the 1900s with confidence and entrepreneurial flair in Taranaki, the settlers made up for their small numbers by an amount of energy and enthusiasm unsurpassed in the records of New Zealand colonisation.

A booming economy continued during the first decade of the century, creating considerable wealth, at least within the European population of New Zealand. It was aided by a growing, energetic society in one of the world’s fastest, robust emerging pastoral industries, providing an ideal environment for the co-operative way of doing business. Co-operatives build egalitarianism and demonstrate democracy in a practical way and in a society determined to acquire economic and independent maturity these organisations developed simply out of social need. Collectives also create muscle by bringing together a variety of valuable, practical and intellectual resources under one umbrella. The ownership structure and principle of sharing capital and earnings also creates a firewall that in this case helped to protect impoverished farmers and their communities when returns and commodity prices affected profitability. This was the climate in South Taranaki when once again local farmer leaders wrestled for control of their own destiny and self-determination in a bullish provincial climate that was forging ahead and catching up with the rest of New Zealand.

Co-operation between farmers was becoming a matter of fact with the establishment of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union (now Federated Farmers of New Zealand Incorporated) in almost every district in New Zealand. The Union was demonstrating the advantages of co-operation and using collective influence not only on a local level, but within the corridors of power in Wellington to provide the rural community with some of the advantages it justly deserved. The executive was studded with highly motivated individuals within Parliament and out in the country districts. The Government now recognised the organisation ‘as a mouthpiece of the farmers’ and was prepared to give due consideration to representations made regarding matters of national importance affecting the rural community. This influential lobby group began making considerable progress in almost all aspects of everyday life of the New Zealand farmer. With some formidable farmer/ politicians amongst their number, they were impressive in their quest for due consideration and self-determination, becoming known as the ‘Farmers Parliament’.

Taranaki Provincial Branch of New Zealand Farmers’ Union had already shown initiative supporting a number of Bills in Parliament and gaining consensus from farmers as a variety of initiatives were promulgated particularly to mutual and co-operative ventures. One highly successful

enterprise to have made its mark, established by the Farmers’ Union in 1905, was the Taranaki Farmers’ Mutual Fire Insurance Association and a number of Mutual Insurance Associations throughout the country. Furthermore, an agency called the Taranaki Farmers’ Union Land and Estate Agency was also opened, with the Union’s provincial secretary of the day, Mr J. B. Sim appointed as chief agent. Although in its infancy, these organisations became a blueprint for further expeditions into the world of commerce. However, despite reasonable support in other districts, the Hawera branch of Farmers’ Union was not in particularly good shape at this time. There had been some division and lethargy which had a negative effect on the attendance at meetings and the local executive went to some lengths to remedy the situation by arranging high-profile speakers to attract members. This, in time, turned things around.

This history contains many unsung heroes who gave years of their lives to the Farmers’ Co-op, but who simply because of the many people involved, gained no lasting recognition of their contribution. One of the earliest examples of these was a young gentleman who was without doubt the main instigator and prime mover in the conception, promotion, organisation and establishment of The Farmers’ Cooperative Organisation Society. George Henry Buckeridge, an educated man of considerable intellect, wisdom and entrepreneurial flair, seemed to be the right man in the right place at the right time in South Taranaki. Born in Nelson and educated at Nelson College he found his way to Eltham with his brother E. Buckeridge. They surveyed the Mangamingi district and pegged the road over the infamous ridge (known today as the Mangamingi Saddle), as well as other roads in the district. George had exceptional organising skills. He was a prodigious businessman and able to apply himself to most areas of commerce. He was honorary organiser for the Taranaki executive and branches and for many years acting provincial secretary of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union and one-time partner of celebrated business entrepreneur C. A. Wilkinson at Eltham. In the mid 1890s he went into partnership with other members of his family. Buckeridge & Co. were general storekeepers, ironmongers and drapers and operated co-operative stores at Eltham and Mangatoki, also acting as cash buyers of all farm and dairy produce. He was an agent for Henry Lane and Co. of London, purchasing product from several dairy factories in the district for many years, and also a land agent, operating out of premises at 16 Union Street, Hawera. Residing in Eltham he was a founding member of the Eltham Co-op Dairy Factory Company Limited and during this time made several trips to England in connection with his work. Outside his busy commercial life he took great interest in All Saints Church in Eltham, as a choir member and lay reader, and he worked to actively raise funds to build the first church, which was situated on a section of his land on High Street Eltham. In later years this became the site of Turner and Sons garage.

This introduction provides an insight into the personality and character of a man who played a pivotal role in the creation of the subject of this history. We are fortunate in the fact that although George Buckeridge is not generally recognised as one of the founding entrepreneurial pioneering settlers of South Taranaki, a number of reports and newspaper articles placed him at the forefront of those with intellect and flair who developed and championed the co-operative cause in Taranaki. Excerpts from a letter he sent from his home at Kelburn, Wellington in relation to the Eltham

George H. Buckeridge, first chairman of The Farmers’ Co-operative Organisation Society of New Zealand Limited 1914–15.

Co-operative Dairy Company’s 50th Jubilee in 1942 will provide a glimpse into the part he played establishing one of the first early co-operatives. He said: In April 1891, I became associated with Mr. C. A. Wilkinson in a general store business at Eltham and very soon found that the struggling dairy farmer, or ‘cow cockie’ as he was called in those days, was finding the struggle to live a very difficult problem indeed. Most of the farms were just emerging from being covered with dense bush and were in a rough state and added to this, the price they received for their milk from the dairy factory proprietor, Mr Chew Chong, viz, 2d per gallon for an 11 lb. gallon was such that, with their small supplies of milk, they were compelled to utilise every means possible in order to eke out a bare existence. Their factory proprietor was also their storekeeper and most of them were indebted to him to a greater or lesser degree, for stores, over and above what they received each month in payment for their milk. The principal source of income outside their milk was obtained from picking fungus, which they sold to their storekeeper – again Mr Chew Chong, to whom by the way must be given credit for finding a market for this commodity, but even with this added income they rarely had any money to spare.

George had read of the exploits of Sir Horace Plunkett and what he had done for Irish farmers in relation to the establishment of co-operative dairying and began talking about it to many ‘cow cockies’ in the district. In May 1891 he gave a short address, ‘in the supper room of the old Town Hall, near the railway, Eltham at a meeting of the Eltham Farmers’ Club’, of which Mr Frank McMahon (Eltham Road) was chairman, on the benefits Irish farmers had secured from co-operative dairying, suggesting that if it was possible for the man who was regarded as ‘the poor benighted Irishman’ to make such a success, it should be much more so, to the ‘enlightened New Zealand farmer’. George said that: The idea was received with much good humour and a great deal of scepticism also, at first, and I was very frequently told that ‘I looked at these things through the rosy spectacles of youth’ and ‘all your geese are swans’ and such like, but the seed sown then took root, though it was not until the following year that it began to look like fructifying. The reason why the meeting of farmers was called was because Mr Chew Chong had told the suppliers that he could no longer afford to pay 2d for milk and that the price was going to reduce to 1½d per gallon. This was when farmers around Eltham came to Mr Wilkinson and Mr Buckeridge and said; ‘You have been talking about this co-operative dairying business for quite a long while now, what about calling a meeting and let us all know about it’? This they did. In short, Chew Chong, fearing that he would lose his supply of milk, made two attempts to recover the situation by increasing his offer to 2½d with a guaranteed supply for three years. This about face nearly overturned the co-operative dairying idea, and as George Buckeridge said: This nearly finished the attempt and all our means of persuasion nearly failed. We were twitted with the fact that, ‘we did not own a farm’ and had nothing to lose if the venture failed, while it meant everything to them’. So in order to convince them of our bona fides in the matter I bought a small farm on the Mangawhero Road…

Chew Chong made a further attempt to win back farmers’ support by offering 3d per gallon with a condition they supply his factory for five years. This ‘unheard of price’ also nearly scuttled the plans. Having suffered a broken leg at the crucial time, George had to leave the job of persuading the farmers to ‘take the plunge’ on the co-operative dairy company project to Wilkinson. The Eltham Cooperative Dairy Factory, however, became a matter of fact and an extremely successful operation.

This transparent co-operative innovation and improvement in the price received for milk set the benchmark for many more co-operative ventures becoming part of the landscape and was probably the incentive that encouraged George Buckeridge to become one of South Taranaki’s most prolific co-operative crusaders and precipitated the eventual establishment of the Farmers’ Co-operative at Hawera.