User:DaveGutfo/sandbox

The Chubut Trading Company of Patagonia
The purpose in establishing this trading company was primarily to overcome the lack of communication between the Welsh settlement in Patagonia and the merchants in Buenos Aires, and subsequently the wider commercial world and the Welsh Emigration Society in Liverpool. At the beginning of the 1870's, the Welsh Emigration Society purchased a ship of 200 tons for the export and import of goods to and from the Welsh Colony and was followed in 1874 by an agreement with the Argentine Merchant House in Buenos Aires, which was partly owned by a Welshman, to sell the colonists agricultural produce at market in Buenos Aires, but commercial development remained slow.

Towards the end of the 1870's, the colonists felt they had become subjected to price fixing practices and in order to obtain the best prices for their goods by removing their dependency on the middleman through the formation of a Cooperative Society. Such a society had first been discussed in 1874, but it wasn't until the trading relationship between the colony and merchants had broken down that the idea of a Cooperative Society gained momentum. The first meeting of the Cooperative Society was held in 1885 and the Society quickly became an important focal point of economic life in the Chubut Valley. The Society rented vessels to transport the agricultural produce to market in Buenos Aires, with the return journey to Chubut bringing a wide variety of goods purchased at wholesale prices fro resale at retail prices in Chubut, with profits made by the Society being distributed among the shareholders. The Society flourished and had extensive capital and credit systems which enabled it to surmount the price fixing practices. However, eventually the transportation of goods by shipping resulted in an escalation in the cost of transportation due to the navaigational hazards of shifting sandbanks and shallow draft at the mouth of the Chubut River.