It was worthy of note that the Federation of British
Industries urged that the Co-operative Societies should pay Income-tax. Sir Eric Geddes said that there was a large increase in this form of trading, which now amounted to something like four hundred millions a year. He was informed "that the Co-operative Wholesale Society had recently secured a contract for constructing a bridge over the Severn, costing £363,000. That was work not for a Co-operative Society, but for a firm of contractors.' That seems to us an unfair limitation of the rights of the Co- operators. Why any form of activity should be arbitrarily denied to the Co-operative Societies we cannot conceive. The question whether the Co-operators should pay Income-tax is, however, a very complicated one. Their position is different from that of a private company run for profit, and the problem cannot be settled in the hasty way Sir Eric seemed to suggest.
Previous page
