The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-03-03
$375,0OO,OOO ANNUAL BUSINESS DONE BY -OPERAT|VE STORES BoWron Wants Steck h Install nents fer Benefit of the
 Working Man
PEOPLE WANT SOMETHING
 THAT WILL LOWER PRICES
Shelby Says Lessening the Cost of Living Is More Important
 Than Getting the New
 Steel Plant.

The people of Birmingham appear to be in favor of anything that means the so- lution of the high price problem. A grocery company, run on the cooperative plan, seems a popular remedy, and this plan of reducing the cost of living is meeting with general favor. Letters on the subject received by The Age-Herald yesterday, are expressive of the favorable sentiment of the public at large.
 "The abnormal expense of living has grown to be very serious affair, and conditions tend to an even more serious state," said James Bowron yesterday aft ernoon. T venture to say that the cost of living has been advanced at least 30 per cent in the last ten years. I know that such is the case with me, although have put on no extravagant frills,' have lived in the same house and have had the same number in my family during that time. Since I first came to Birming- ham I have kept little set of books in which I figured the expenses of living for my family every year and reference to these figures shows that the cost of liv- ing has been increased some 30 per cent"
 
 CT part of his life and has made thor ough study of the principle of co-opera- tive stores. Asked for suggestions along this line yesterday he said:
 Cooperative Stores in England.
 ''The progress of the cooperative so- cieties in England has been extraordi- nary. Between the years 1874 and 1899 the
 
 in England proper increased from 600.- 900 to 100000 and the capital invested increased from $25, ,0O0 900 to $1oO000,00O. The business done in the last year of the old century amounted to about s375,00O, O00 or about $25 per capita on the mem- bership. The societies have proven sue cess in every respect
 With the establishment of a co-opera- tive grocery company in Birmingham, 1 think that it should not be confined to groceries alone, but to meats, poultry, butter, eggs, every class of vegetables in fact everything entering into the food of the people.
 "One of the great savings of store operated on this plan, as have suggested before, would be in the policy of selling strictly on cash basis to all who are not stockholders. This would avoid the neces- sity of keeping credit books, would prac- tically exclude the expense of bookkeep- CTS, collectors and the sending out of bills, and would do away with losses from bad debts, which very often kills the retail tradesman. The object of the store would be lower prices and not beautiful devices This would eliminate the eX- pense of fancy window dressings, fine quarters and great number of other things that add to the expense of groc- cry store. With all this &pense knocked off, it is safe to say that prices could be reduced 15 per cent goods being sold at small margin of profit.
 "It would be a mistake to start in on too large a scale. Foodstuffs should be handled at first and then if need be other branches may be taken up.
 'It is a very easy matter to under stand why food, especially vegetables, is high in the Birmingham district. The section, to begin with, is not an ideal one for farming. The wages have been higher in the industrial works than they have been on the farms, and for this reason men following agricultural pur- suits are few. Birmingham is contin- ually drawing men from the country who are consuming great quantities of food while none Is being raised on the farms from which they came. For this req son practically everything has to be shipped into our market.
 "The effort for and the movement to- ward the cooperative grocery is one thing we must look after Another will