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non-official organizations, if and when they become capable of employing an organizer and arranging (under the general control of the Registrar) the audit of the societies. (iii) To strike off from the Register and compulsorily to liquidate all societies which either break the law or refuse to work in accordance with their own registered bye- laws or are or seem likely to become insolvent, or in any way are working con- trary to co-operative principles. He should have full power to liquidate without the consent of the society, and with the minimum of reference to a judicial authority.

The law should also provide for the submission of certain annual returns to the Registrar of each society at a stated date, but in many cases in the earlier years the Registrar or his organizer will have to visit the societies and prepare the annual statements himself.

It is not possible to foresee the number of rural or urban societies.

A study of the map of the northern district indicates that there may be a hundred or two hundred villages each of which might contain one or more societies for different purposes. The number of urban societies will depend upon the enthusiasm and the skill of the non-official association, which I should wish to see created. It will, in my opinion, be advisable for the Registrar to give more direct attention to the rural societies while leaving urban work in the first place in the hands of the non-official body, and checking its correctness and liquidating its mistakes.

The principle object for which I was invited to visit Hong Kong was to propose means for encouraging the production of pigs and poultry in the New Territories. The greatest need for assistance seems to me to be felt by the poorest class of producer, i.e. the farmer (man or woman) who is a permanent resident in the village, owns and cultivates land, and keeps only one or two pigs or a few poultry as a side issue. Their produce is sold to a class of middlemen, often but not always immigrants from Kwangtung, who keep from ten to a hundred pigs or a comparatively large poultry farm. These middlemen do not require financial assistance. If business is good, I think they will have no difficulty in obtaining all the credit required from bigger dealers or butchers or money shops or banks. In any case, they are not the kind of person for whom Co-operation is intended or adapted. If any help is given to them, it will be in respect of marketing. The demand of the producer is for pro- tection against disease, and this should be given by Government in the form of an Animal Husbandry Expert as proposed by the Marketing Committee. It is im- possible for any co-operative officer to possess the technical knowledge to instruct stock producers in veterinary science, crop raisers in botanical science, savings societies in financial methods, medical societies in medicine, housing societies in methods of construction, etc., etc., etc. A co-operative officer is an expert in Co- operation, with a general knowledge of economics, an adequate knowledge of the local language and a large fund of sympathy and enthusiasm. Whenever he is con- fronted with a technical problem, he turns to the technical officer of this science, and to appoint an agricultural expert as Registrar of Co-operative Societies is, in my opinion, a great mistake. The demand for protection against disease may, there- fore, best be met by drawing the people together in co-operative societies for some other purpose and then inviting the Animal Husbandry Expert to address them on matters of feeding or disease. The aim of the small producer is for money and he will benefit merely if co-operative credit societies are organized in the villages from which he can obtain a small loan from time to time for the purpose of new stock or food-stuffs. I have supplied a model of bye-laws for such a society to the Colonial Secretary's Office, and I recommend that the Registrar, when appointed after train- ing, devotes himself in the first place to training a Chinese co-operative organizer (at $50?) and to forming small and simple societies of credit in the New Territories. A society should undertake no other finances than the supply of money to those