3 MAY 1984: GARY LEWIS, AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITY, TALKING TO KEVIN YATES

GL: Kevin firstly, thank you very much for agreeing to talk with me today. How did you come initially to be involved in the co-operative movement?
KY: I first got interested in the co-operative movement, even though I was always a searcher of things with a social content, was when I became a member of the Campion Society and started to do a study course, I came upon pamphlets from the USA on co-operatives and credit unions.
GL: Can you tell me what the Campion Movement was exactly?
KY: It was a group of young Catholic men who sought to be more knowledgeable about their religion than was normally the case and they embarked on study courses on philosophy and other subjects. Being a bit of a pragmatist I found the social angle appealed to me more and that is how I went off at a tangent and eventually left the society, though I still remain a nominal member, and became more actively engaged in practical co-operative activities.
GL: Where did you find points of connection to express these co-operative activities?
KY: Well there was a little radio library in Pitt Street years ago and I was browsing through the books there one day and saw a book, The Lord Helps Those Who Help Themselves. Neatly inscribed in the flyleaf by my good friend John Gurr with a little rubber stamp was ‘Co-operative Services Limited, 7 Angel Place’. I couldn’t get up there quick enough. I met the young lady who was a public typist and she told me I could become a member for two shillings. This was a group who had developed from non-Catholic sources as a result of a visit to Melbourne of this Helen Topping, this American girl who was secretary to Kagawa, a Japanese evangelist. I didn’t get to know very much about his activities at all but I did have contacts with the Christian Co-operative Fellowship. I mistakenly addressed some mail to Mr Brown, who turned out to be a Miss Brown and I was corrected for that. I entered into the activities of this small Co-operative Services who had a bookcase of groceries and other odds and ends which they were purchasing basically from the CWF’s branch in Buckingham Street, Sydney, the railway.
GL: Where was Co-operative Services situated?
KY: In the bookcase in Wingello House, 7 Angel Place. They accepted me as a member and I became pretty actively involved in the general development. We had study groups going there, trying to get new members and were trying to expand but unfortunately the war broke out which restricted our activities considerably. This was just immediately before the war. To keep the ship afloat, to use that expression, under war time shortages they decided to buy this little service cafe in George Street close to Wynyard which carried on for the duration. Those of us who joined up in the various forces returned to find the little restaurant still operating but the initial fervour was gone, no doubt due to the war and may be due to the fact that people had got older, some had got married. They were a very idealistic group but as I have since learnt for any co-operative activity to be basically successful has to fulfil a need. Not much good having idealism and no need or, on the contrary having a need but no idealism if you want to have successful co-operative idealism. So regretfully we had final meetings and decided to liquidate Co-operative Services but I am happy to say they did pay twenty-five shillings to the pound.
GL: What sorts of things were the people discussing both before the war and after the war? What would be a typical meeting topic?
KY: I would say the basic theme was a better social order. The average man getting more from life than he was getting prior to co-operative developments. More for your money you might say, better quality of goods and services. What was typical I suppose of the originators in Rochdale where they had adulterated food and low quality goods and services.
GL: Were there any people who stand out in your mind who were involved?
KY: Yes. Reg Walters, now deceased unfortunately a year ago, John Gurr, still about but he is retired, he was an industrial chemist. I would suggest if you want more information on J C Johnson and Ron Ingram-Smith a talk with John Gurr would help you there. I think Johnson was a teacher. I had met Ingram-Smith but I don’t know him very well at all.
GL: Was J C Johnson involved later with the Tranby Aboriginal Co-operative, or was that a relative do you know?
KY: That I couldn’t tell you. Could have been.
GL: So these were some of the outstanding people. Were there any others?
KY: Yes there was another chap but off-hand I can’t remember his name. He joined the air force and I am sorry to say he was killed while training in South Africa on the way to the UK.
GL: That brings something to mind. Did you at any stage ever meet a D H McKie or McKay from Victoria? He was very much involved in the Christian Co-operative Fellowship in Melbourne.
KY: I can’t remember. Other names are on the booklets, together with Miss Brown.
GL: He disappears at some stage during the war or after the war.
KY: I can’t say I met any of the Victorian people at all, I only had correspondence with them.
GL: I see. So how did you continue to develop this after the war?
KY: Oh I would say at the most about eighteen months to two years. Then I found there was one small ray of sunshine existing in a little Sydney co-op society at Crows Nest. Living on the north side I found I was eligible to join that and soon became a member of the board. Regrettably, owing to war time bad buying or shortages, the initial zest and enthusiasm seemed to depart from that group. That was regretfully liquidated a year or two later. That was when, as I mentioned to you earlier, Sydney became a co-operative retail desert which exists even today.
GL: What were some of the things discussed by the board during that time?
KY: Well stock problems, the necessity of getting a greater membership. I did raise the matter there that it would be a good idea if they put in a switch in there and lit up their windows at night, which they weren’t doing, to show their goods, having some knowledge from the city of how successful after-hours display can be to sell the product. That was done. But it seemed as if there was no great support, no great heart among an elderly board of directors and I regret that the manager, even though he was a keen person and in the early days did get round and got a lot of members to join, wasn’t the right man for the job.
GL: Can I ask you who that manager was?
KY: You could, but I can’t remember his name.
GL: I will find it out. When you say stock problems, what kind of problems?
KY: Well bad buys which were not applicable to the current retail market. As I say the remnants of war time quality goods which were outdated, kitchenware and stuff like that, which virtually had to be given away rather than sold.
GL: Were any of these English Co-operative Wholesale Society items?
KY: No, as far as I can understand they were basically local stuff. Whereas there wasn’t any great competition from the local food stores they just weren’t getting the trade, even though their position wasn’t too bad in that part of Military Road.
GL: So the Crows Nest store went down. How then did you maintain your involvement in co-operation?
KY: That is an interesting point. I was still very interested and keen, as I am even today, and it was my good fortune to meet the Reverend Dr P J Ryan, a Marist priest from Kensington, who was very active in Sydney in special social matters. He said to me, “Do you know anything about these credit unions?” I said, “Well a little bit. I happened to make contact with some of them in Canada.” He asked me to give a talk to a group of men one Sunday afternoon in the Southern Cross Hall, I think it was, in Elizabeth Street, Sydney, opposite Mark Foy’s old building. So I got up on the stage after other matters had been discussed by this group of trade union people, as I subsequently found them to be, and gave a little dissertation of my knowledge and experiences of credit unions in Canada and invited anybody interested to talk with me after the meeting. One of the keen members, who is still a very good friend today, was Clarrie Murphy. Dr Ryan arranged for us to have free space in CUSA House, as it was called then, in 175 Elizabeth Street. I decided to follow out the principles I had got from Canada from the St Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, to have a regular study group, in other words learn by doing. That was how it basically started. I was married and living in a small little flat in Phillip Street in the city and I was told I drove them very hard. We virtually had to start off from scratch and we got in touch with Antigonish and they very kindly sent us some printed matter. We had to get and design our own passbooks, take out some loans to get the feel of things. There were twenty-two members and that approximately thirty pounds, ($60) grew into a very worthwhile and viable operation. Regrettably in our endeavours I feel the Catholic church lost a golden opportunity to develop credit unions in Sydney and may be further afield, as they had done in the USA. We found it very, very difficult to get through to the average parish priest the importance of these financial co-operatives, credit unions I mean, to help every day members of their parish. It seemed to me the average parish priest was more involved, or interested, in running a little tight ship of his own parish and some of them seemed to regard a credit union as a charitable organisation, which it is not, very definitely not. I remember on some occasions people being sent along to us for help and firmly being told by us, and by me at times, that we are not an organisation like St Vincent de Paul, we are a commercial operation where people borrow money for good worthwhile purposes and unfortunately we are not in a position to give them any hand-outs.
GL: Can you tell me about some these early study groups? The atmosphere, who would come, what you would talk about.
KY: Well the early activities were basically to make the thing operate. As such we did have printed matter from Antigonish, as I say, and some of the members were reading these pamphlets about the general philosophy of co-operation. I must say the spirit was tremendously high, they were very, very keen. There was an evangelistic spirit just like at the big conference where I spoke in 1982 for the Australian Federation of Credit Union Leagues. At question time one of the members said, “We regard credit unions as a religion”, it was their religion. That spirit was very, very apparent not only in Universal but among other groups, employee groups, which developed in latter years.
GL: When did you decide to call the first credit union you were involved with Universal? How did the name come about?
KY: Well the name came about in an interesting manner. The word ‘union’ wasn’t a very nice word in Sydney in those days with a very strong communist influence in the trades unions. When I suggested we used the word ‘credit union’ some of the members felt it wasn’t a good word to use. Anxious to get the thing going I compromised with the name of Catholic Thrift and Loan. Later on, when the printed matter started to come through from Antigonish and later on from CUNA in Maddison, USA, the title credit union was used all the time. It must have seeped through to the minds of the members that as I had pointed out it was like a trade mark. Every bit of printed matter we handed out from overseas was having an impact and the world credit union, as I am pretty certain it is today, was associated with our activities. I am given the credit for using the word ‘Universal’ but it was some member, when I got more involved with the Co-op Institute nationally, who brought the matter up. I don’t know his name. At a meeting, which I was not at at that time, the word Universal Credit Union was nominated and agreed to and I was the person who was very, very pleased with that result.
GL: Now you have mentioned the Co-operative Institute. Was your involvement with the Co-operative Institute and Universal running parallel, concurrent?
KY: It was to a great extent. As a matter of fact it was a source of comment by my dear wife who reminded me from time to time that the very day she arrived in Sydney from Canada I excused myself that night to go to the first meeting of the Institute. I don’t think she ever forgave me that. That was where I met Alf Sheldon, though of course I knew him previously, and a group of these other representatives of various co-operatives. I got very enthused about it. Coming home from overseas where I had seen other farmer co-operative activities in my spare time in Canada and having seen the movement in my spare time in the UK, they nominated me as a member of the board. I became very actively involved and to a certain extent left some of the practical, everyday activities of Universal to the other members.
GL: Tell me more about Alf Sheldon and the people at the Co-operative Institute? What were the currents of opinion running throughout the Institute?
KY: Well Alf was a very dedicated man. I don’t think the registry, as we called it, before and certainly since has every had such a leader. As I mentioned earlier in our discussion today, he was always anxious to help rather than hinder, which regrettably seems to be sometimes the attitude of many government departments. He on his own initiative, as far as I can understand, developed this round table conference, as he called it, of representatives of all sectors of the co-operative movement. I think he felt they were terribly fragmented, no inter-communication between themselves, and the movement needed a real good push along. We were hosted by the Primary Producers’ Union, who gave us free accommodation, and the president was Mr R C Gibson. The secretary was his own secretary of that organisation, Mr L??? Johnson. I was so keen about it and spoke so much about it, I seemed to be given carte blanche to do virtually anything I could to push the thing along. I hastily decided then that we needed a voice and suggested that we form a committee to go into and eventually produce some sort of a publication which we called Co-op. This is where Mr Tom Shonk comes into the picture. He was on the board and he at that time, I didn’t know previously, was an official with the Benevolent Association. He was a man to be admired because I found out later that he used to get up at the Domain years previously on one of their little podiums or stools or whatever and speak about co-operatives. I also found that he had taken over the editorship of Co-op News which had been started by the Reverend Pulsford, who I never met, over in Adelaide. Tom had offices in a little building, 2 Hunter Street.
GL: I think I might point out there that at that stage the Reverend Frank Pulsford actually built upon what was originally called the Wheatsheaf in Adelaide which had been started by a chap called Roly Campbell. I believe that was the geneses of Co-operative News and the Co-operative Wholesale Society kept the registration in Adelaide but ran the paper from Sydney.
KY: I see. Well Tom, as I mentioned, had virtually a full-time job in the Benevolent Society and he had as an editor a Miss Eileen Entwhistle, who was a very fine person and did a lot to help us to eventually bring out, which I will tell you about a bit later on, the Co-operative Hand Book. Regrettably, Tom Shonk, maybe he was worrying about his Co-operative News magazine, objected to us bringing out any publication at all. One famous comment he made, and I have never forgotten it, was ‘a mechanic’s distribution’. I regret it as I say. I admired the man but I do feel that unfortunately a certain amount of self-interest was entering into his objection. I persisted and we developed the magazine and John Gurr became editor, he was active in the organisation at the time. We brought out a creditable little publication.
GL: How often was it issued?
KY: It came out on a quarterly basis. Unfortunately, as I suppose the editors of lots of other magazines would know, we found it very, very difficult to get contributions, the history, comments, from managers of the various co-operatives. You might notice, incidentally, that I use the word co-operatives I don’t use the word society very much. Frankly co-operative implies the word society. As a small aside I remember when Mark Joseph of the Registry was busy rushing up and down the coast forming fishermen’s co-operatives some of them had names so long it would take about two pages to write them down. I think I did persuade Mark to drop the word society out of the registration of some of these fishermen’s co-operatives. We carried on and we had meetings from time to time, but there was no great support, no great zest by these other representatives in the Institute.
GL: Do any names or personalities come to mind when you talk about lack of zest?
KY: I won’t say there was any direct opposition except from Mr Gibson, and I regret to say this one too, who eventually objected to me moving towards the development to be just like a member of a co-operative bank. He threatened and eventually did resign from the Institute and of course we had to find new quarters.
GL: Why would the idea of a co-operative bank be so unacceptable?
KY: That was never told to me, but I am pretty certain that even today there are a number of big co-operatives, having no doubt happy relationships with their own banks, who feel, basically because they are not knowledgeable enough about the co-operative idea, unable to support us. I am happy to say under the good, excellent, activities of Bruce Freeman of the Federation of New South Wales, and now I understand he is becoming the head of the Co-operative Federation of Australia, there is a very concerted move towards the development of a co-operative bank. This is developing under his leadership. It is regrettable, but is typical of what goes on, that the building societies are not supportive and it seems the credit union movement is not giving it the support they could give.
GL: Why would this be? Why would there be resistance to the idea of a co-operative bank? If I can add another prong to the question, you mention the Co-operative Federation of Australia, what was the response of the then Co-operative Federation of Australia to the Co-operative Institute? Were they amicable in their relationship?
KY: Well in those days the Co-operative Federation of Australia was based in the office of Wesfarmers in Perth. I have always admired that crowd as being on the ball. Though I have had very little contact with them except at the odd conference one of which was down there in Canberra some years ago, I was very impressed with the leadership of those people. I think it was just the fact of distance and lack of communication, I wouldn’t say there was any opposition from them. I would even go so far to say, because the name is down here later on, Mr Bath MLC I am almost certain that years ago he might, or did, comment about the possible development of a co-operative bank. You have got to remember that in Great Britain, on the Continent and now in the USA I am happy to say there are co-operative banks in existence. I feel that to be really effective the movement must have the backing of a financial organisation like that.
GL: Now within the Co-operative Institute there were also people representing the Association of Co-operative Building Societies were there not?
KY: That is correct.
GL: In fact Mr Sheldon was instrumental in drafting, or at least creating the environment in which the legislation to develop the co-operative building societies network came. So how would, for example, those people within the Institute who were, if you like, inclined towards a permanent building society structure view the idea of a co-operative bank?
KY: Well I think to most of them it was something in the far distant future. As I say I was pretty heavily involved in the Institute in those days but there was very little input from these other groups at all, as best as I can remember. They just went on developing their own organisations and as I say the poor old Institute eventually languished and died. As I mentioned when we left the premises of the Primary Producers’ Union in Spring Street I prevailed upon a Mr Frank Leonard, an advertising agent and a very fine gentleman, and he gave us space free to carry on the office of the Institute. That is where young Bill Egan comes into the picture. He is very definitely an unsung hero due to the amount of work he put in as secretary to the Institute and the development of the Co-operative Institute Hand Book in latter times, together with Eileen Entwhistle. So it just sort of languished for lack of support and eventually got run down. I thought I would keep it going in the hope that maybe some time in the future somebody, or some group, would rise to start, like the phoenix, all over again.
GL: Before we go on to that Kevin, what is your recollection of the disposition towards the Institute of say the group from Newcastle?
KY: Well I think they just accepted it as a good idea but never did much to support it at all, to my knowledge. I think all the moves came from a few enthusiasts in Sydney.
GL: Was the Co-operative Institute seen as a potential rival, for example, to the Co-operative Federation?
KY: I wouldn’t think so. When you say the Co-operative Federation, do you mean the national body?
GL: Yes, which at that time George Boothe was the president and the secretariat was in Perth.
KY: I wouldn’t think so. The general thought was that every state should have some sort of propaganda, publicity body and the Institute seemed to be the one that was operating in New South Wales.
GL: Now the reading informs us A B Sheldon I think was interested in it having national ramifications, promoting uniform legislation for example and becoming the educative body for the co-operative movement in Australia.
KY: Well that may be so. I don’t remember talking to him about that, but that could have been used as an adjunct to a national co-operative federation. There was a Rochdale Institute in the USA as a training body, or teaching body, years ago. I don’t know whether it is still in existence or not.
GL: So the Co-operative Institute has fallen on hard times. It has been turfed out of the Primary Producers’ Union building and it has taken up lodgings elsewhere.
KY: Correct. It wasn’t until a number of years later, when Bert Crosky was Registrar . . .
GL: About what period of time would this be?
KY: In the mid-1960s I would think. Bert Crosky invited me round to O’Connell Street, where they had their offices at that time, to have a cup of tea and a talk. I went round to see Bert, who I knew pretty well, and he broached the matter that a group up the north coast had had meetings. I knew about them but no actual contact had been made with the Institute. Bert said they couldn’t get registered because the Co-operative Institute was already registered for such a purpose. He said, “What do you think we can do about?” When I said to Bert they could take over the Institute he could almost have kissed me. I think we had five hundred pounds invested in the NSW Permanent Society at that time as well.
GL: Can you tell me about this north coast group?
KY: Frankly at the moment . . .
4255 Words: 1 hour 40 minutes.
3 MAY 1984: GARY LEWIS, AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITY, TALKING TO KEVIN YATES

KY: . . . interested in the idea again and a strange thing, but it is true unfortunately, they had no knowledge that the Co-operative Institute existed. That is one of the problems we have had not only in Australia but in New South Wales, an utter lack of communication between the different sectors of the movement, which I think operates even today though the situation has improved. So I became a member of the committee which took over the Institute and then I resigned, having other personal activities to attend to. They have carried on in a very desultory fashion with a series of managers. Clarrie Murphy was a latter one and I think it picked up a good deal under his leadership. But I must say that the real force that has made the Co-operative Federation of New South Wales what it is today is due to Bruce Freeman. I have hopes that it will go to greater things.
GL: So that gives us a very good account out of the development of the Co-operative Federation out of the ashes out of the Co-operative Institute as it were. Now meanwhile of course there was the parallel credit union involvement developing. Would you like to take us back to Universal.
KY: Well Universal carried on. We rushed around to various parishes, gave talks, sometimes to just a couple of people. I remember one incident at Penshurst I think there was a family of a man, his wife and a couple of children and a dog, that is the only audience I had to speak to. These things happen, I have heard of parliamentarians having similar problems when they have been out electioneering. I few little groups did start, one called St Jerome’s which became Punchbowl, Clarrie Murphy was a prime mover in developing that one. A few other parish groups developed. Then it was my good fortune to meet up with Keith Young, who was a very progressive young man who worked at the Colonial Sugar Company, as it was called in those days. He had started a clerical officers’ credit union which as far as I know, I talked to him recently, doesn’t exist today. He also had one down at Balgowlah where he lived. Keith became terribly enthused with this credit union idea and I know for a fact we were having phone conversations during business hours every day in the week. I sometimes wonder what work we got done of our own necessity. Keith became the secretary then of the Credit Union League. I will go back a bit because we had two abortive attempts to form a league after a few years. There was insufficient support from the handful of credit unions that were then existing, either parish groups, occupational groups, which I prefer to call them rather than industrial, and some under the umbrella of Keith Young, his group. On the third attempt, in 1956, ten years after the formation of Universal, we were fortunate in getting sufficient support. The movement had grown considerably by that time and I arranged for a meeting to be held in the offices of the Canadian Theatrette in Elizabeth Street, where we showed some films on credit unions borrowed from Antigonish. The result was a decision to form a New South Wales association. Even then the word ‘union’ was worrying some people. We did have representatives from Newcastle as well. It was decided to have John Ward, the late John Ward who became very prominent in the development of the St George and Cronulla Building Society, as the chairman. So that took off and the enthusiasm engendered by meeting together was like a real ????? of these different groups of people. Some of us met together for the first time and it was absolutely contagious. There were contacts with CUNA, Antigonish seemed to have faded from the scene to a great extent then. Antigonish was more of an educational body whereas CUNA was more in the practical development, the mechanics, of starting and operating credit unions. That involved, in 1958, the visit here of Olaf Spetland, the director of World Extension of CUNA. As a result of Olaf’s visit he arranged for a trainee visit by Keith Young and Clarrie Murphy to the USA. They came back after a period of time very, very enthused and persuaded the association to change its name to the New South Wales Credit Union League because the words ‘savings and loan’ over there was synonymous with building societies. So that was an other accomplishment which made the word ‘credit union’ more useable in the public mind. So we just carried on. As I say the enthusiasm was most infectious and you really had to be involved in that movement at that time to realise the amount of energy and keenness. The word got around too, as they use it in America, there were a lot of credit union widows because the boys were out not only actively participating in the credit union activities but charging around the countryside trying to get other groups to start credit unions.
GL: Was the enthusiasm manifesting the Co-operative Institute?
KY: Well that is a good question. It was with some of us who were keen credit union people, but it was dormant in the co-operative people who couldn’t have been interested less, as far as I could see. In answer to the question about a rift, there wasn’t any rift because there was never any joining together. It was just the fact that the credit union people, on thinking it over, were so involved in the operation and running of their own organisation they didn’t have any time for anything else. So it was the efforts by the Institute, and I must say it was through those of us in the Institute who were credit union people, that did develop the Credit Union League. The Institute was definitely the prime mover in the development of the League. As I say there were no rifts because the marriage had never been arranged in the first place.
GL: There certainly was not positive expressions of enthusiasm or support for the idea of a credit union co-operative sector?
KY: By the Institute? Not particularly at all.
GL: What were some of the comments when you discussed credit unions in the Institute? What sort of things did people say?
KY: I don’t think they said very much at all. They all seemed to be very self-centred I found in those days. Engrossed in their own problems, always worrying about taxation which I said in a subsequent talk seems to be an obsession with co-operative people. They want to get away with paying no tax at all. I feel there you can’t run any country if you don’t get somebody paying taxes. If we want to compete against private profit business, I use that word advisedly ‘private profit business’ because after all a co-operative is a group of private enterprise, we should be able to compete against them on their own ground. Not look for so many hand-outs, which seems to be another attitude of some of these co-operative types, always looking for the government to come and help them. My attitude has always been ‘the Lord helps those who help themselves’.
GL: I know I am jumping around a bit here Kevin, but did you meet A F J Smith?
KY: I did indeed. He was then the manager of the English Co-operative Wholesale. I did persuade him to join the board of the now moribund Crows Nest co-operative store. He was a great help to us with advice, but as I say the organisation was too far gone to be revived. He was also active in helping us as much as he could with advice in the operation of the Institute. A very fine man. He is retired now I understand. There are some other names here that come to mind. P J Carroll, well he succeeded Alf Sheldon, Pat Carroll, as registrar. I can’t say he was particularly active in any promotional work at all. George Boothe, I met him on a number of occasions. He was a good solid North Englishman, keen on the co-operative movement where he sort of had his childhood. He was keen to push the idea along and I think we must give him credit for the development for the Ministry of Co-operation. I think only for George we would never have had it. It doesn’t seem to exist very forcibly today unfortunately. Of course the first minister of that was Clarrie Martin. Then we had Mr Evatt, who didn’t impress me at all.
GL: Can I ask you about that. Did you come to learn why it was that Martin was shifted to Attorney-General right, as it were, within an ace of delivering up a co-operative bank?
KY: No I wasn’t knowledgeable about any of that activity whatsoever.
GL: It is very hard to find out anything about that. Cabinet had more or less agreed that legislation for a co-operative bank was in order, in fact I think it was drafted and discussed. At which time Martin was put to Attorney-General and Evatt came in and remained stolidly non-committal on the issue for several years, by which time the permanent building society structure was more or less formalised.
KY: You are telling me some history now. I am not knowledgeable about that at all.
 Eugene O’Neill, I know the name, but I just can’t fix that gentleman in my mind.
 I remember the late Victor Pollock, a fine old gentlemen. He was very keen and a supporter of the co-operative idea in general, that is all I can say about him.
 Wallace Pooley was very, very active of course in the formation of the building societies. I met him on a number of occasions, he used to have an office up there in Bathurst Street. That is where the NSW Building Society started off. When they moved I am virtually certain they sold it to the Sydney Water Board Employees’ Credit Union who operates today from those premises but call themselves the SWB Community Credit Union, they have changed their name, managed by Paul Bounds, a good type of fellow.
 J A Burke. I know the man by sight, I think I met him once or twice, an elderly gentleman even in those days. I think he was active in the real estate business if I remember rightly. I don’t know much more about him at all.
 Brent. Well he was a very keen old chap from the old country. I would say he was a strong force behind the Newcastle development.
 Les Gibbs, well he was the manager of that organisation. I regret to say that since his retirement the Store went down and now unfortunately doesn’t exist, like a lot of other co-operatives which have lost the source of their reason to be, their philosophy.
 Mr Mathieson, I didn’t know him very well at all.
 Meeting with English CWS delegates in 1946. I am afraid that is a void.

Not able to transcribe remainder of tape (as noted).
1875 Words: 45 minutes.
3 MAY 1984: GARY LEWIS, AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITY, TALKING TO KEVIN YATES

GL: Can we swing our attention now more specifically to the credit union movement?
KY: Right. Well I think I mentioned earlier we were successful on a third attempt under the auspices of the Co-operative Institute, this time, in forming a Savings and Loan Association, in 1956 ten years after the formation of Universal. Even then the word ‘union’ was not too popular and that is why it was given that name rather than the New South Wales Credit Union League, which it eventually became when Clarrie Murphy and Keith Young came back telling us that the word ‘savings and loan’ in the USA was synonymous with building societies. Well then we found that we were eligible to send members, one or up to five according to membership, to the annual meetings of CUNA in the USA. So I was kindly elected and it was my good fortune on this particular tour to start off in Vancouver where I met John Nasara, now the Honourable John Nasara in the Fijian government. He was a sort of interpreter there who was seconded to Father Ganey when he first started credit unions in that beautiful place in the Pacific. I might mention I have had some contacts with the Governor, Sir Ronald Garven, in recent times since I had a visit down there late last year, this is Fiji. He has written an interesting book which I will loan you later on called Gentleman Pauper, which tells his life story in the British Honduras and places like that, and the Solomons. There are a couple of chapters on the development of credit unions in Fiji. So John was a great speaker and held the attention of the audiences wherever we went. We stopped off at various cities like Calgary, Regina, Toronto, then down to Maddison and eventually up to Boston, where the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Foundation of Credit Unions was being held in that particular year. I was so impressed with John I arranged, when I came home, to have our league bring him up to Sydney and we got some pretty good publicity as a result of his visit in the media. At the meetings at Boston I was distressed to find tension existing between the CUNA organisation, Credit Union National Association, and the CUNA Mutual Insurance Company. It was a case of presumably the tail trying to wag the dog. Unfortunately there was some very heightened ill-feelings around the country due to this tension. I tried to remain neutral as best I could but as a delegate I just voted according to what I felt was the right thing to do. I voted on any matters that necessitated that particular type of vote in favour of CUNA itself. So on my return home we did experience a backlash of this particular tension because we were then ourselves trying to overcome this problem of having some carrier, insurers, for that famous slogan, ‘the debt dying with the debtor’. The CIS insurance company here as well as the National Co-operative Insurance Society were not life companies, they were not eligible to give us that coverage. The CIS (Co-operative Insurance Society) I might mention was founded here years earlier as a result of the good work and the putting away of sums of money over a period of years by the CWS at the instigation of George Boothe.
GL: George Boothe was involved in the establishment of NCIS.
KY: That’s right. CIS was going for many years with headquarters in Victoria if I remember rightly. Mainly for the farmers, men on the land. I had read a book called Vice-President in Charge of Revolution by the late Murray Lincoln. I was so impressed with his story of how as a young farm boy he joined this Ohio farm bureau and then they developed an insurance department which grew. Grew very successfully offering low cost coverage to farmers who they felt were not exposed to a lot of the problems that city-dwellers experience. The insurance commissions of that state stepped in eventually and told them they would have to run it as a separate organisation. He elected to stay on as manager and had built up a tremendously big and powerful organisation now known as Nationwide Insurance in its various forms. I wrote him a letter and he was kind enough to send a couple of his executives over to Sydney to meet with us to see what could be done to develop our own co-operative insurance life company with the support of Nationwide. Unfortunately, and I say this with great regret, the self-interest of some people in the league, and the prime mover being Stan Arneil, seemed to be working against this what I felt was good co-operative activity. Even though we had a committee sitting on this matter, deliberation between CUNA Mutual versus something else. In this case it was the Nationwide-sponsored possibility and there was nothing definite just a matter of coming to a decision. I at that time, owing to illness in the family, was not active in the league, had to resign from the board, I found to my dismay that Beresford Calverley had got up and moved a motion that the offer of CUNA Mutual be accepted and that was passed by the board at that time. That was done without any consultation or consideration of the committee, which I didn’t regard as very, very nice at all. That of course has still got an aftermath even today I have heard. So much so there is a proliferation, as a result of that break, of bigger credit unions making arrangements with other insurance companies. So it seems to me human nature after all is the basis from how all these things operate. A long as you have got human nature you are going to have some of these problems, whether they are co-operators or not. I have always felt that is one of the things I liked about the co-operative idea, they had less appeal to man’s baser instinct, what am I getting out of it rather than what can I give. Regrettably there are some still in co-operative activities who haven’t all got the full philosophy. I suppose we have just got to learn to live with that as well.
GL: Apart from these tensions over the issue of insurance, there were other streams of thought and possible conflicts running within the credit union movement. Could you comment on those?
KY: Oh yes. Upon us then came the Reverend Father J Gallagher, a Catholic priest of some parish out at Greenacre I understand, who had conceived the very wonderful scheme of economic democracy, if you can call it that. He used the word Antigonish, or Rochdale, whereby he would have credit unions and he would have retail stores and he would have something else, a three-tiered thing. It was all very grand and he worked like a beaver and he deserves a lot of credit for his activity.
GL: What was his motivation?
KY: I think basically to help people. But as I have sometimes said Stan Arneil and the Reverend Gallagher in my mind come into what I regard as a class called benevolent dictators. If you don’t agree with them you seem to be against them, according to them. Anyhow Father Gallagher did contact me and suggested would I like to join a brains trust which he hoped would disseminate information and philosophy to the various groups he was forming. I found fairly shortly, after having one meeting, that the brains trust needed a bit of a study group themselves and without any vanity felt well the best we could do was have a few sessions whereby they got to know about credit unions and the co-operative philosophy in general. Well everything went fine until one night Father Gallagher asked me would I like to go out to Revesby. I remember this very, very definitely. In those days I didn’t have a car but I was living in Phillip Street so I caught the train out there and met him in a little hall. It seems that insurance has been a stumbling block in lots of credit union activity. So there is a group of people there joyfully developing their little parish credit union and then after some discussions he called the meeting together and said he had a man there whom he wanted to introduce to talk about insurance. This man, I think his name was Smith, said he was a representative of the American Insurance Company, I think they were based in Spring Street in the city. He started off there with credit unions being an American idea, this was an American company and off he went. This was just too much for me, because after all I hadn’t been consulted by the Reverend Father about his insurance activities either, so I just walked out of the hall. He came after me and said, “What’s wrong?” I said, “You know what’s wrong. You haven’t even consulted me or anybody else as far as I know about your activities in trying to develop this thing.” He made a remark, which I will be honest and say to you was not right but I might have had a drink, “You’re drunk.” I had been to an Air Force meeting earlier in the evening. I said, “I’m not drunk enough not to know what you are doing.” That was the end of my relationships with the Reverend Gallagher. I only met him once in Pitt Street and I am afraid I might have been a bit rude to him when I said, “Physically you are as big as Father Coady but that is where the resemblance ends.”
GL: Now there was a very dramatic incident involving Antigonish and the Advisory Council suggesting to the government certain alterations to legislation. Can you elaborate on that?
KY: Well I wasn’t a privy to his activities from that date as I mentioned. He was a very vigorous person, as I say, and he must be given due credit for his zeal and enthusiasm. He developed some little insurance agency of his own to cater for his needs. I think it was when Bert Crosky was registrar he challenged the registration of one of Father Gallagher’s activities. Father Gallagher took the matter up and I think it went as far as the state parliament. I can’t tell you now, frankly, who was successful. Regrettably the Reverend gentleman, who over a period of time seems to have the faculty of getting on the wrong side of everybody including his own hierarchy, doesn’t enjoy the best of health these days I am told. What I know of his activities they have withered on the vine.
GL: Well thank you Kevin. Apart from these areas, the credit union movement seems to have fragmented, or certainly in its earlier days, not only along ideological lines and insurance lines but a southern group forms. Can you comment on why this should be?
KY: I think personality differences played a big part there. I think Tom Kelly would be a better man to talk to in that respect because he has been more actively engaged not only in the operation of his own credit union but in the activities of these groups at the south coast, Sydney and Newcastle. I know there was a very thriving group, and I had the pleasure of meeting them a few times, down in Wollongong. They weren’t so happy with some of the activities of some of these self-interested people unfortunately, and I say that advisedly, in Sydney. They weren’t anxious to join the league at all and formed their own group. That was the start. I have since heard that a similar group started up in Newcastle. I am not very knowledgeable about them at all. We had the unhappy situation then of having not one credit union league representing the movement in the state but three or four. I understand there is a little bit of amalgamation going on now and I am happy to hear this because it is just a waste of activities and causes animosities. I can’t really say where the initial enthusiasm, and there really was high-powered enthusiasm in those early years, exists today’s in the various groups or not because I am not actually involved in any of their activities.
GL: Are you involved with any of the Newport Schools, the formation of AFCUL?
KY: I did go down to one Newport School. I think it did a lot of good, but that was what one person told me was ‘guided democracy’ under the auspices of Stan Arneil. I must say that on one occasion there, when he wanted me to give my imprimatur to his activities, I stayed outside so I couldn’t be found.
GL: Are there any other general comments about the credit union movement that you would like to make before we get on to more general co-operative issues?
KY: One little part. When Stan Arneil did start AFCUL, as he called it, we did have this meeting in the old Wentworth Hotel. I felt he was pushing things a bit too fast at that time. I think Stan was trying to create an empire and that was part of becoming a national body. After all his own activities were nation wide with the ABC and I suppose he felt that would be a good body to have going, but I personally felt at that juncture it should be the normal evolutionary process of what would be a league. We didn’t try to start the NSW League before ten years. I felt it was a bit premature but still it was started and has kept going, thank goodness, and is a pretty efficient body today. That is about all I can think of at that juncture.
GL: Over the years co-operators from various groupings have sought a co-operative bank, why has this dream not been realised?
KY: I think, Gary, it is due to the fact that a lot of other co-operative activities haven’t been realised when I come to think of it. They haven’t got to the force and the strengths in their own particular movements to become a viable supporting body for a bank. Whereas it has been talked about and dreamt about for many, many years it is a practical thing when the movement is properly organised and because the need is there for it as a base from which to support existing co-operatives and credit unions and for future developments.
GL: What would a co-operative bank do that established banks wouldn’t?
KY: Good question. I would say they would be a bit more interested in supporting say a new co-operative enterprise which maybe the ordinary banks would view with askance. Just like in the early days when we went round to the various life insurance companies and sought to get a policy for debt dies with the debtor and got a nice reception, a cup of afternoon tea in one instance, but no support. It wasn’t a profit-making proposition for them. I feel myself, having read a bit about the banks for co-operatives in the USA, which Roosevelt established, I think it was a good idea they eventually controlled them themselves even though the government had a major ownership in the beginning. They have done a lot of work in supporting farmers and similar activities which maybe the ordinary commercial bank would have viewed as a poor risk and said no. It would have to be studied and seen that it could be a proper viable proposition. You couldn’t have too many hare-brained schemes coming along otherwise the bank would be in trouble.
GL: Do you see farmers, building society people, credit union people, consumer groups and other sectors in the co-operative movement combining to create a co-operative bank or do you see that as an improbable possibility?
KY: I wouldn’t say improbable, but I wouldn’t foresee that for some reasonable time. Until the fence sitters, as there always are in every movement, saw the thing was a success. I am pretty certain just like credit unions gave the ordinary person a better financial deal with low-cost loans, the bank itself would possibly be able to offer better terms to co-operatives and other activities.
GL: A very general question here, Kevin. Why has co-operation not caught on in Australia? Or has it? What is the environment, the legal and political environment been? Why hasn’t it caught on?
KY: I think the basic reason why it hasn’t caught on, in a general sense, we are in some respects a pioneering country where it is everybody for himself and the devil take the hindmost, you might say. I know that Mark Joseph told me he had great trouble convincing all of these fishermen, who were highly individualistic people, to form a co-operative though a lot of them realise now it has been of great benefit to them. I have often times said to people that the co-operative ideal seems to appeal, to use the old expression, when the shoe begins to pinch. When things are not too good, Tom, Dick and Harry who normally are great individualists are starting to look around and calling one another friendly names and joining hands to work together. I think in our developing area, just like in the USA where they had something similar in their earlier years, the co-operative ideal will sort of catch on as time goes by and more enterprises are developed. From a legal point of view, I don’t think there is anything particularly obstructive in that respect to my knowledge, there could be. I know we had to form a separate Credit Union Act eventually but having a sympathetic registry that wasn’t any great trouble. I have noticed in the past that governments, no matter what their persuasion if you want to use that expression, seem to be supportive to the idea of co-ops. But I suppose it could come to a stage when maybe somebody or some group will realise they are becoming a danger and then we would have some active opposition. Sometimes I feel if we had a bit more opposition the movement would be all the better for it.
GL: What has been your experience with the trade union movement as a co-operator?
KY: Very negative I am sorry to say.
GL: Are there any specific instances that come to mind?
KY: Well they have never supported the few attempts, to my knowledge, when we had some consumer co-operative conferences to come along and give some support. Although I know from a practical point of view an old friend of mine, Ray Bruce, who was a newspaper man was overseas in the air force and when he came home he was with the Mirror for a while, then he took on the job of editor of the Iron Worker newspaper. He said to me one day, “Would you like to write an article about credit unions and what they can do for the working man?” I said yes I would give it a go. The theme of it was it could be like a double-barrelled gun. They had got the trade union to get better conditions and wages for themselves and the credit union, or co-operative activity, if they wanted to support one, would give them better value for the money they were earning. Whereas they were getting better pay, they were using up a lot of that money in excessive over-costs on some of the products and services they were buying. To my knowledge there was not one enquiry as a result of that article.
GL: I see. Why do you think the trade union movement might be negative?
KY: I think they are so heavily involved in running their own organisations and seem to be very self-centred. That is all I can say to that.
GL: Right. Another general question here. Some people have described co-operation as a middle way between capitalism on the one hand, private capitalism or corporate capitalism, and state socialism on the other. How would you describe this description?
KY: That is a very good pragmatic reply I would say, I use it myself. I do feel the way the cycle of capitalism is going it will get more and more pressure from these huge, and I use the word huge advisedly, multinationals and big government. I do feel the average citizen is going to be for a terrible squeeze unless he has got some viable alternative to the pressures brought on him by these two groups. I know a lot of co-operators will stop there, but I am going to tell you here and now that I feel there is a greater field for co-operation in its various forms. I look forward to the time when it will become the dominant economic and social activity of life.
GL: The dominant, can you be more specific? How for example could a co-operative sector be larger than say the public or private capital sector?
KY: Well I will give you one instance. I understand, I have never been to see it unfortunately, that the biggest department store in Sweden and Stockholm is called HUB, it is a co-operative. No doubt Mrs Yates will go there and make purchases and presumably get rebates if the prices are good enough these days to do it, or get some benefits or amenities. She certainly won’t be exploited. As far as say a steel company, what is to stop it being converted into a co-operative enterprise. They talk, glibly I would say, these days about people’s capitalism, of the average little man buying a few shares in some of these public companies, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t got any say in the control of it at all. With the co-operative technique of one-man-one-vote, and if people have been properly educated, there is no reason at all why you couldn’t have BHP running as a co-operative, or any other big enterprise. I feel it can only be expanded into other social activities and co-jointly work in with a more democratic form of government.
GL: Lately we have seen the taking over of several co-operatives by what newspapers describe as the corporate raiders. How can this tendency be arrested and given that development how could a co-operative sector ever become the dominant one?
KY: Well that is a great regret to me to hear and see this litany of failures, take-overs that have been going on for the last several years. All I can say it points to the need for more publicity, more organisation, which I hope will be spearheaded by the Co-operative Federation of the states and the Commonwealth to make people realise what a co-operative is, what it can do and to raise some degree of enthusiasm and knowledge among people in general, among the citizens, so they can see the benefits that can be achieved. I am afraid that these take-overs are as a result of default of existing management and directors who are co-operators in name only.
GL: One final general question. It has often been said, particularly by Christian Socialists within the co-operative movement, that the co-operative mode is an embodiment in commerce of the teachings of Jesus Christ. Would you care to comment on that description?
KY: Well I can’t give you any specific incidences in the Bible about it but I think Christianity is full of instances. Take the Apostles themselves, the common sharing of a purse and doing to others without sort of a sense of reward, except maybe the person’s satisfaction of it. No doubt in the Scriptures there could be some specific instances of which I am not knowledgeable. I think it lines up very, very well indeed with the teachings of Christ. If people would only realise the latent abilities that the average man has as an individual and as a mobilisation of their buying power, their voting power, you wouldn’t know this world in say five years time.
GL: Final question. What in your view is the future of co-operation in Australia?
KY: Well I am just as enthusiastic today as I was when I first got interested in it. I am more and more convinced through my practical interest in the movement and my readings from overseas, which unfortunately is not very well publicised in Australia, that our future is bright. We have just got to have the right type of person in the right positions to carry the message to all and sundry. I think that some system of getting into the schools is a very good one, letting the young people know what the co-operative ethic is. I understand the credit unions have done a bit of that in latter years with kits. It has got to be a continuous job, I am quite convinced of that. I have spoken to people in business about different things and I have been absolutely amazed at the ignorance of some businessmen about certain overseas business journals which I feel they should just know very well indeed. The same things goes for the ordinary citizen, you have got to be continually putting your message across. You can see that in the success, you might say, of modern business firms where they never let up on their advertising, publicity, call it what you will. Keeping their name and product or service before the public. I am quite sanguine that given some of the current leadership and the fact that even the ordinary pressures of economic life will force more people to the realisation that we have got the answers.
GL: Kevin Yates thank you very much.
4328 words: 1 hour 35 minutes.