Co-operative Movement 1930s

Century of Endeavour

The Co-operative Movement in the 1930s

(c) Roy Johnston 1999

During the 1930s JJ initially was farming near Dundalk, then near Drogheda, on the fringe of his academic work, but his main interest was in attempting to counter the worst effects of the economic war, as evidenced by his book The Nemesis of Economic Nationalism, published in 1934. He therefore did not have much time for co-operative campaigning. Despite this the co-operative movement in Britain picked up on his academic publications, as evidenced by the following extract, for which I am indebted to Kate Targett of the Plunkett Foundation in Oxford.

Co-operative Conference Association

I have not so far come across traces of this body, which perhaps was ephemeral, but there was among JJ's papers a copy of a pamphlet of his which they published in 1933, entitled The Importance of Economy in the Distribution of Goods. Because it is rare I think it is worth reproducing in full. Also in contains embryonic versions of certain of JJ's key economic concepts, as developed in the Nemesis of Economic Nationalism, and his later attempt to establish consumer demand as the basis of credit.

1935 Year-book of Agricultural Co-operation

This annual publication of the co-operative movement in Britain has in its 1935 edition on p67 an article by HF Norman headed 'The Irish Free State' in which JJ's analysis of the situation is quoted, based on his paper in the September 1934 issue of the Economic Journal. I have summarised this in the 'academic papers' stream.

I give the extract here in full:

AGRICULTURE during 1933-34 in the Irish Free State has shared the depressions and vicissitudes of world agriculture besides presenting certain individual features of its own. It may be said at the outset that the co-operative movement has continued to work through the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society successfully throughout the period, but it is not easy to formulate an adequate analysis of transitions dictated by the peculiar circumstances of an economy, mainly based by natural conditions upon the rise and fall in price and production of livestock and livestock products -- more particularly the products of dairy farming -- which, besides being severely limited by the international depression, has been diverted from its accustomed channels by recent incertitudes of inter-insular trade. This is specially difficult at a time when Great Britain, our largest market for surplus food products, is endeavouring to segregate for her own farmers a larger proportion of her own market and we are trying to reduce our unemployment figures by a lengthening and strengthening of the industrial arm, involving a corresponding limitation of imports.

Export duties and countervailing bonuses, having political as well as economic aspects, have come into play in the two islands, and, apart from the fact that important polemical aspects of these legislative and administrative complexities cannot be considered in this article, there is an additional fact to note. We write before a good deal of the data which would otherwise form its background is available. A lengthened strike in the printing trade has delayed the publication of statistical comparisons normally ready for public use earlier in the year, and this introduces an unavoidable element of conjecture into comparisons, here made with care but advanced with reserve.

An article, which is, under these circumstances, of exceptional interest to statisticians, was published last September in The Economic Journal, on "The Purchasing Power of Irish Free State Farmers", by Professor Joseph Johnston, FTCD, who, anticipating official estimates of our agricultural output, has "projected" figures for 1933, partly from official trade statistics and partly by calculations from information he has collected in his own typical and varied inquiries.

The trend of these investigations is to show that the aggregate money receipts of Irish Free State farmers from livestock and livestock products, which rose from over £37 millions for i926-27 (the year of the latest full official figures for our agricultural output) to over £42 millions in 1929-30, fell for 1933 to only £23.5 millions. If crops and turf be added,'the:full money receipts would appear as over £4I millions for the first of the three years, less than £45.5 millions for the second, and nearly. £26.75 millions for the third.

Probably reduced export sales have led to increased subsistence farming and to larger sales in the home market. No account is made of the income (not necessarily cash transactions) arising from consumption of farm produce by farmers. Against diminished cash income, there is also a diminution for 1933 in expenses, raw material, etc., estimated at £5,000,000. This calculation allows over £15,000,000 as available for spending on non-agricultural goods and services by nearly 700,000 farmers and agricultural workers, presumably supporting an "agricultural population" of 1,815,000, an allowance which, with perhaps a small margin of increase for possible error, seems to give one potential measure of our pecuniary farm wealth.

It is not to be confused with total income in money and kind, which involves the value of home-consumed produce. This was included in the official "agricultural output" for I926-27, valued at 64.75 millions.

If Professor Johnston's estimates are an approximation to the farmers' financial situation of 1933, the cash- figure would have diminished for that year by about one-third."

What this shows is that JJ's standing with the co-operative movement remained high, and he was regarded as an internationally relevant quotable authority. He had however shifted his attention, as regards outreach activities, to the SSISI (Statistical and Social Inquiry Society) for economic work, and towards the end of the decade to the Irish Association, for promotion of all-Ireland consciousness.

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