Meantime the Barrhead bakery was ready for work and baking was commenced in the last week of the year, but the society, although it had withdrawn a large proportion of the loan capital invested with the Baking Society in order to pay for the erection of its own bakery, retained membership of the Federation until requested by the committee to withdraw as the interest on the share capital was an unnecessary burden on the Federation’s funds. The society was allowed to withdraw without any of its capital being retained, being the first of the withdrawing societies to which this privilege was extended. In 1894, after fancy biscuit baking had been firmly established by the Baking Society, Barrhead Society rejoined again, taking up 1,500 shares. Another withdrawal which occurred in a comparatively short time, and which was doubtless influenced to some extent by the refusal to establish a branch in the West, was that of Johnstone Society. At a meeting of the committee which took place on 15th February 1879, the minutes record a conversation which took place regarding a decision of that society, come to the previous evening, to start baking for themselves. The effect of the information that they were likely to lose Johnstone Society’s custom so soon after having lost that of Barrhead had a damping effect on the spirits of the committee, and it was decided that in the meantime the erection of the new ovens which they had proposed to build be not proceeded with. With the withdrawal of Paisley Provident Society at the end of 1880, consequent on having a bakery of their own ready for occupation, the controversy with respect to the branch, and also its effects on the welfare of the Federation, may be said to have ended. The Federation had lost three of its best customers, but it had succeeded in keeping its business centralised. It must always remain a matter of argument whether it would have been better to branch out at an earlier date and do for the societies in Renfrewshire that which in later years it has done for Clydebank and the North of Ireland. The question of branches is still one on which there is considerable controversy, and, at any rate, it is certain that the committee, and latterly the delegates, played for safety, and chose to conserve the strength of the Federation at a time when all its strength was needed rather than weaken it by widening the scope of the society’s energies. The majority of the committee, it is quite evident, were opposed to branching out, for had this not been so, they would have gone ahead when two general meetings of the Society gave them the mandate.