1 JUNE 1934, Page 6

Lord Rothermere has, I observe, joined Lord Beaver- brook in

attacks on the Co-operative Movement—in the interests, of course, of the private trader.. I shall be a good deal more impressed with the sincerity of this campaign when I sec it directed equally against the department store and the multiple shop. I am making no case and drawing no moral and expressing no views, but what effect do Lords Beaverbrook and Rothermere think the existence of Barkers and Harrods and Selfridges and Liptons and International Tea and Home and Colonial has on private grocers and drapers and tailors and furnishers up and down the country ? And what would happen to their advertisement revenue if they decided to defend the private -trader against that tre- mendous competition as well as merely, against the co-operative societies ? But perhaps it is simply' that the idea never occurred to them. We may see.