Naturally the directors were anxious to push their biscuit trade as rapidly as they could, and having fixed up a trading agency with the S.C.W.S. and with the Co-operative Institute, London, they endeavoured to do the same with the C.W.S. This society had a biscuit factory of their own, however, and were, not unnaturally, reluctant to introduce what were really the goods of a competing concern, therefore they refused to accept the agency. The next step taken by the Society was that of appointing a traveller for the purpose of pushing biscuits and oatcakes in England. Against this step, however, a very vigorous protest was made by Mr James Young, who considered that there should be no further pushing of the Society’s goods into English societies against the wishes of the English Wholesale Society’s committee. Following on this decision, it was agreed that the Society’s productions should be exhibited at the Crystal Palace Exhibition. This activity in England brought a letter from the C.W.S. committee, who pointed out that the action of the Baking Society would lead to competition and overlapping. Later, that committee also passed a resolution in which they stated that they were ready and willing to supply all the societies in England with biscuits if they would only be allowed to do so, and sent a copy of the resolution to the Baking Society’s committee. THE BIG BOYCOTT. Reference has already been made to the boycott of Co-operators which was inaugurated all over Scotland and continued throughout 1896 and 1897. The traders had made their organisation very complete, with the result that every manufacturing firm on which they were in a position to bring pressure was compelled to discharge all employees who remained members of Co-operative societies, or whose parents continued members, or else to suffer very considerable loss of trade. In no department of labour was it easier to bring effective pressure to bear than on the baking trade, and the result was that all the big baking firms in the city were compelled to post up notices informing their employees that they must cease to trade at Co-operative stores or leave their employment. Similar notices were posted up in every workshop and factory where the Traders’ Association was in a position to apply any pressure, often against the will of the employers, who recognised that those of their workers who were Co-operators were usually the best and steadiest men, but who were compelled to choose between perpetrating a manifest injustice and seeing their businesses ruined. No tactics were too mean or despicable to be resorted to by the traders’ organisation. They had their spies everywhere, and a favourite method of operations was that of watching the shops of the Co-operative societies and tracking the customers home, then ascertaining where the husbands were employed, and writing to their employers to demand their dismissal. This espionage system was very