The difficulty which arose from shortage of capital was not the only one with which the committee was faced, unfortunately. Foreman baker after foreman baker was tried, but still complaints of the poor quality of the bread continued to pour in. Added to this there were the difficulties of delivery. When the Co-operators of to-day see the vans of the U.C.B.S. arriving at the various shops with the regularity of clockwork, they may have some difficulty in realising that fifty years ago the problem of prompt delivery was a very serious one, and one which engaged the attention of management and committee almost continuously for several years. In part, this was due to the fact that the baking of bread had not been reduced in those days to a state of scientific accuracy, as it is to-day, and partly it was due to the shortcomings of the human element, which has always a tendency toward failure at the most unexpected times and often in the most unexpected ways. The craze for new bread was as great fifty years ago as it is to-day, but the difficulty of delivering it was very much greater, and it was especially great in the earlier years of the Baking Society’s existence because of the fact that the majority of the societies in the outer area supplied by the Federation were but small and could give but small orders, thus increasing the cost of delivery until sometimes it transformed trade which should have been profitable into a losing business. So much so was this the case that, in the first two or three years, society after society, which had joined the Federation and were anxious to trade with it, had to be asked to withdraw because the cost of delivery was so great that it could only be done at a loss to the Federation. The first societies to suffer in this way were Motherwell and Dalziel. At a later date, Vale of Leven Society, which had been having their bread sent by rail, had to withdraw, and later still, Lennoxtown were asked to make arrangements for getting bread elsewhere as soon as possible, on the ground that the Baking Society was losing eleven shillings every week through delivering bread to them by van.