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CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE TEN CONGRESSES

"We ought to resolve the economical problem, not by means of an antagonism of class against class; not by means of a war of workmen and of resistance, whose only end is a decrease of production and of cheapness; not by means of displacement of capital which does not increase the amount of social richness; not by the systems practised among foreigners, which violate property, the source of all emulation, liberty, and labour; but by means of creating new sources of capital, of production and consumption, causing them to pass through the hands of the operatives' voluntary associations, that the fruits of labour may constitute their property."—GIUSEPPE MAZZINI, Address to the Operatives of Parma (1861).

THIS comprehensive summary of co-operative policy exactly describes the procedure and progress gradually accomplished in successive degrees, at the ten Congresses of which we have now to give a brief account.

    The Central Board have published every year during its existence closely-printed Reports of the annual Congress of the societies.  Ten Reports have been issued. [276]  They contain the addresses delivered by the presidents, who have mainly been men of distinction; the speeches of the delegates taking part in the debates; speeches delivered in the town at public meetings convened by the Congress; the papers read before the Congress; foreign correspondence with the leading promoters of Co-operation in other countries.  These reports exhibit the life of Co-operation and its yearly progress in numbers, conception, administration, and application of its principles.  Though the Reports are liberally circulated they are not kept in print, and thus become a species of lost literature of the most instructive kind a stranger can consult.  These annual reports, and the annual volumes of the Co-operative News, can be kept in every library of the stores, and every store ought to have a library to keep them in.

    There have been three series of Congresses held in England within forty years—a Co-operative series, a Socialist series, and the present series commencing 1869.  The first of the last series was held in London.
 
    The following have been the Presidents of the Congresses and names of the towns in which they were held:—

    Mr. Thomas Hughes, M.P., was the president of the first Congress.  He was one of the chief guides of the co-operative Israelites through the wilderness of lawlessness into the promised land of legality.  From the Mount Pisgah on which he spoke he surveyed the long-sought kingdom of co-operative production, which we have not yet fully reached.

    Among the visitors to the first Congress of 1869 were the Comte de Paris, Mr. G. Ripley, of the New York Tribune, the Hon. E. Lyulph Stanley, Mrs. Jacob Bright, Henry Fawcett, M.P.; Thomas Dixon Galpin, T. W. Thornton, Somerset Beaumont, M.P. ; F. Crowe (H.B.M.'s Consul-General, Christiania, Norway), Sir Louis Mallet, Sir John Bowring, Colonel F. C. Maude, William Shaen, the Earl of Lichfield, and others.

    Prof. Vigano, of Italy, contributed a paper to this Congress; and a co-operative society of 700 members, at Kharkof, sent M. Nicholas Balline as a delegate.  On the list of names of the Arrangement Committee of the Congress was that of "Giuseppe Dolfi, a Florentine tradesman, who, more perhaps than any other single person, helped to turn out a sovereign Grand Duke, and remained a baker." [279]  He was a promoter of the People's Bank and the Artisan Fraternity of Florence.  There was an Exhibition of co-operative manufactures at this Congress, which has been repeated at subsequent Congresses.

    The following list of names of the first Central Board of the Co-operators, which was appointed at the 1869 Congress, includes most of those who have been concerned in promoting the co-operative movement in the Constructive Period.  Mr. Pare and Mr. Allen have since died:—

    The Congress of 1870 was held in the Memorial Hall, Manchester.  The practical business of Co-operation was advanced by it.  Mr. Walter Morrison, M.P., delivered the opening address, which dealt with the state of Co-operation at home and abroad, and occupied little more than half an hour in delivery.  Subsequent addresses have exceeded an hour.  The example of Mr. Morrison was in the direction of desirable limitation.  As a chairman of Congress Mr. Morrison excelled in the mastery of questions before it, of keeping them before it, of never relaxing his attention, and never suffering debate to loiter or diverge.  Mr. Hibbert, M.P., presided the third day.  At this Congress, as at subsequent ones, during Mr. Pare's life, foreign delegates and foreign correspondence were features.

    The Birmingham Congress of 1871 met in the committee-room of the Town Hall.  The Hon. Auberon Herbert, M.P., was president.  He spoke on the fidelity and moral passion which should characterise co-operators.  Mr. Morrison, M.P., occupied the chair the third day.  Mr. George Dixon, M.P., presided at the public meeting in the Town Hall.  The Daily Post gave an article on the relation of Co-operation to the industries of the town.  All the journals of the town gave fuller reports of the proceedings of the Congress than had been previously accorded elsewhere.  At this Congress a letter came from Herr Delitzsch; Mr. Wirth wrote from Frankfort; Mr. Axel Krook from Sweden.  Dr. Muller, from Norway, who reported that co-operative stores were extending to the villages; and that there is a Norwegian Central Board.  Prof. Pfeiffer sent an account of military Co-operation in Germany—a form of Co-operation which it is to be hoped will die out.  Denmark, Russia, Italy, and other countries were represented by communications.

    The Congress of 1872 was held in Bolton.  Bolton-le-moors is not an alluring town to go to, if regard be had alone to its rural scenes or sylvan beauty; but, as respects its inhabitants, its history, its central situation, its growth, its manufacturing and business importance, its capacious co-operative store, and the hospitality of distinguished residents, it is a suitable place to hold a Congress in.  The town has none of the grim aspect it wore of old, when it was warlike within, and bleak, barren, and disturbed by enemies without.  Flemish clothiers sought out the strange place in the fourteenth century, and possibly it was Flemish genius which gave Arkwright and Crompton to the town.  In 1651 one of the Earls of Derby was beheaded there.  The latest object of interest in the town is a monument of Crompton, who made the world richer, and died an inventor's death—poor.  Bolton, however, did not owe Co-operation to Flemish, but to Birmingham inspiration.  Forty-two years before, Mr. Pare delivered the first lecture given in Bolton upon Co-operation, in March, in 1830.  He spoke then in the Sessions Room of that day (which is now an inn), mostly unknown to this generation.  I sought in vain for the Bolton Chronicle of the year 1830, to copy such notice as appeared of Mr. Pare's meeting.  Unluckily, the Chronicle office had itself no complete file of its own journal.  The public library of the town was not more fortunate.  The volumes of the Chronicle about the period in question in this library are for 1823, 1825, 1829, and 1835.  The 1830 volume was not attainable, so that the seed was not to be traced there which was found upon the waters after so many days. [280]

    Many remember it as the Bolton wet Congress.  Even Lancashire and Yorkshire delegates were not proof against Bolton rain.  The Union Jack persevered in hanging out at the Congress doors, but drooped and draggled mournfully, and presented a limp, desponding appearance.  Even the Scotch delegates, who understand a climate where it always rains, except when it snows, came into the hall in Indian file, afraid to walk abreast and confront the morning drizzle, against which no Co-operation could prevail.  Some unthinking committee actually invited Mr. Disraeli, then on a visit to Manchester, to attend the Conference.  Crowds would be sure to surround the splendid Conservative, and it would be sure to rain all the time of his visit—everybody knew that it would in Manchester—and yet the co-operators invited him and the Countess Beaconsfield to come dripping to Bolton with the 10,000 persons who would have followed.  The town would have been impassable.  The Co-operative Hall held a fifth part of them; and there would not have been any business whatever transacted while Mr. Disraeli sat in the Congress.  It is not more foolish to invite the dead than to invite eminent living persons, unless it is known that they are likely to come, and can be adequately entertained when they do come.  To the outside public it is apt to appear like ignorant ostentation.  I have known a working-man's society, without means to entertain a commercial traveller pleasantly, invite a cluster of the most eminent and most engaged men in the nation, of such opposite opinions that they never meet each other except in Parliament, to attend the opening of a small hall in an obscure town, where the visitors pay ninepence each for tea, when a great city would deem it an honour if one of them came as its guest.

    This Congress held a public meeting in the same hall where Schofield, the republican, was murdered not long before in the Royalist riots in the town.  It was during this Congress that Professor Frederick Denison Maurice died.  Knowledge of his influential friendliness to Co-operation caused every delegate to be sorry for his loss.  Few co-operators probably among the working class were able to estimate Mr. Maurice's services to society, or measure that range of learning and thought which has given him a high place among thinkers and theologians.  A man can be praised by none but his equals, but the tribute of regret all who are grateful can give, in the respects in which they understand their obligations.  This co-operators could do, for they were aware he had founded Working Men's Colleges in London to place the highest education within the reach of the humble children of the humblest working man in the nation.  Mr. Neale, to whom I suggested the propriety of such a resolution, and to whom it had not occurred, said I had better write it—which I did.  It was carried with grateful unanimity.

    At this Congress M. Larouche Joubert informed us that the Co-operative Paper Manufactory made £20,000 of profits between June, 1870, and June, 1871—a period so disastrous to France.  It used to be the common belief that Co-operation would fall to pieces in trying times, but in Lancashire it stood the test of the great cotton famine, and in France it stood the test of war.  Equally during the German war the co-operative credit banks were unshaken.  Professor Burns, writing from Italy, told us of the interest taken by Baron Poerio in a Co-operative Society of Naples, which actually existed among a generation reared under a government of suspicion.  M. Valleroux reported that not a single productive society gave way in Paris neither under the siege nor the Commune.

    Mr. Villard, the secretary of the Social Science Association of America, supplied a survey of co-operation in America, and papers were expected from M. Élisée and his brother M. Élie Reclus, of France, eminent writers on Co-operation.  They would have been present had not the suppressors of the Commune laid their indiscriminating hands on one of them.  Too late M. Élisée Reclus was liberated from Satory, where he was confined by misadventure, on account of alleged complicity with the affairs of the Commune, which he opposed and deplored, being himself a friend of pacific, social, and industrial reform.  He was (and his brother also) a prominent member of a society for promoting peace and arbitration of the national differences which led to war.  Élisée Reclus being an eminent man of science, whose works have been translated into English, great interest in his welfare was felt by men of science in this country.  M. Élisée's work upon the "Earth" is held in high repute among geographers.  The memorial signed in this country, and presented to M. Thiers on his behalf, bore many eminent signatures, and was happily successful, as M. Reclus's life was in danger from privation and severity of treatment.

    The Congress of 1873 was held in the Mechanics' Institution of Newcastle-on-Tyne, Mr. Joseph Cowen, jun., being president.  His was the first extemporaneous address delivered to us, and its animation, its freshness of statement, and business force made a great impression.  It was the speech of one looking at the movement from without, perfectly understanding its drift, and under no illusions either as to its leaders or its capacity as an industrial policy.

    At this Congress was recorded the death of Mr. Pare.  It was he who first introduced the American term Congress into this country, and applied it to our meetings.  For more than forty years he was the tireless expositor of social principles.

    Newcastle is an old fighting border town; there is belligerent blood in the people.  If they like a thing, they will put it forward and keep it forward; and if they do not like it, they will put it down with foresight and a strong hand.  There is the burr of the forest in their speech, but the meaning in it is as full as a filbert, when you get through the shell.  Several passages in the speeches of the President of the Congress give the reader historic and other knowledge of a town, distinguished for repelling foes in warlike times, and for heartiness in welcoming friends in industrial days.  The delegates were handsomely taken down the Tyne by Mr. Cowen in the Harry Clasper steamboat; there was a Central Board meeting going on in the cabin, and a public meeting on the deck.  If co-operators held a Congress in Paradise they would take no time to look at the fittings, but move somebody into the chair within ten minutes after their arrival.  On leaving the Harry Clasper a salute of forty-two guns was fired in honour of the forty-two elected members of the Central Board, a tribute no other body of visitors had received in Newcastle, and no Central Board anywhere else since.  The delegates were welcomed to the Tyneside with a greater hospitality even than that of the table-namely, that of the Press.  The Newcastle Daily Chronicle accorded to the Congress an unexampled publicity.  It printed full reports of the entire proceedings, the papers read, the debates, and the speeches at every meeting.  When the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and the kindred Society for the Promotion of Social Knowledge, visited Newcastle-on-Tyne, the Daily Chronicle reported their proceedings in a way never done in any other town of Great Britain or Ireland, and the Co-operative Congress received the same attention.  Double numbers were issued each day the Congress sat, and on the following Saturday a supplement of fifty-six columns was given with the Weekly Chronicle, containing the complete report of all the co-operative deliberations.  Thanks were given to Mr. Richard Bagnall Reed, the manager of the Newcastle Chronicle, for that tireless prevision which this extended publication involved.  Of the Chronicle, containing the first day's proceedings of the Congress, 100,000 copies were published, and 90,000 sold by mid-afternoon.  The same paper contained a report of a great meeting on the Moor, of political pitmen, which led to the large sale; but the cause of Co-operation had the advantage of that immense publicity.  The Newcastle Moor of 1,200 acres was occupied on the first day of the Congress by a "Demonstration" of nearly 100,000 pitmen, and as many more spectators, on behalf of the equalisation of the franchise between town and county.  The richly- bannered procession marched with the order of an army, and was the most perfect example of working-class organisation which had been witnessed in England.

    Mr. Cowen, the president of the Congress, was chairman of this great meeting on the Moor.  The Ouseburn Co-operative Engineers carried two flags, which they had asked me to lend them, which had seen stormier service.  One was the salt-washed flag of the Washington, which bore Garibaldi's famous "Thousand" to Marsala, and the other a flag of Mazzini's, the founder of Italian Co-operative Associations, which had been borne in conflicts with the enemies of Italian unity.  The best proof of the numbers present is a publication made by the North Eastern Railway Company of their receipts, which that week exceeded by £20,224 the returns of the corresponding week for 1872, which represented the third-class fares of pitmen, travelling from the collieries of Durham and Northumberland to the Newcastle Moor.  The Congress also made acquaintance with the oarsmen of the Tyne.  A race over four miles of water between Robert Bagnall and John Bright was postponed until the Wednesday, as Mr. Cowen thought it might entertain us to see it, and it was worth seeing, for a pluckier pull never took place on the old Norse war-path of the turbulent Tyne.

    It was this year that Mr. Walter Morrison, M.P., presented the Congress with eight handsomely, mounted minute glasses, which, out of compliment it would appear to the Ouseburn Engineers, were described as Speech-Condensing Engines. Four of the glasses ran out in five minutes and four in ten minutes. The object of the gift was to promote brevity and pertinence of speech. There has been engraved upon each glass a couplet suggesting to wandering orators to moderate alike their digressions and warmth; to come to the point and keep to the point—having, of course, previously made up their minds what their point was. The couplets are these—
 

    In Athens, an accused person, when defending himself before the dikastery, was confronted by a klepsydra, or water glass.  The number of amphoræ of water allowed to each speaker depended upon the importance of the case.  At Rome, the prosecutor was allowed only two-thirds of the water allowed to the accused.  At the Congress, the five-minute glass was generally in use, the ten-minute one when justice to a subject or a speaker required the longer time.

    The Congress of 1874 was held in Halifax, when Mr. Thomas Brassey, M.P., was president, who gave us information as to the conditions of co-operative manufacturing.  The authority of his name and his great business experience rendered his address of importance and value to us.  The store at Halifax had come by this time to command attention, and the co-operative and social features introduced into the manufactories of the Crossleys and the Ackroyds rendered the meeting in that town interesting.

    Professor Thorold Rogers, of Oxford, presided at the London Congress of 1875.  He stated to us the relations of political economy to Co-operation, sometimes dissenting from the views of co-operative leaders, but always adding to our information.  It is the merit it of co-operators that they look to their presidents not for coincidence of opinion but for instruction.  Not less distinguished as a politician than as a political economist, the presence of Professor Rogers in the chair was a public advantage to the cause.

    Mr. Wendell Phillips, of America, was invited by the Congress to be its guest.  The great advocate of the industrial classes, irrespective of their colour, would have received distinguished welcome from co-operators who regard the slaves as their fellow working men, and honour all who endow them with the freedom which renders self-help possible to them.  Mr. Phillips was unable to leave America, but a letter was read to the Congress from him.

    At this Congress in a paper contributed, N. Zurzoff explained the introduction and progress, of Schulze-Delitzsch's banking system in Russia.  It was met by a very unfavourable feeling on the part of the Russian Government and the people.  They did not understand it and did not want it.  It took Prince Bassilbehikoff no little trouble to make it intelligible in St. Petersburg.  In 1870 thirteen banks were got into operation; in 1874, more than two hundred.  At the same Congress Mr. Walter Morrison read a paper giving an English account of the history, nature, and operation of the Schulze-Delitzsch German Credit Banks, the fullest and most explicit.

    A proposal was made at this Congress to promote a co-operative trading company between England and the Mississippi Valley, and a deputation the following year went out to ascertain the feasibility of the project.  Friendly relations have been established between the better class of Grangers.  It is necessary to say better class, because some of them were concerned in obtaining a reduction of the railway tariff for the conveyance of their produce, by means which appeared in England to be of a nature wholly indefensible.  But with those of them who sought to promote commercial economy by equitable co-operative arrangements, they were anxious to be associated.  The plan devised by Mr. Neale, who was the most eminent member of the deputation, would promote both international Co-operation and free trade; objects which some of the co-operative societies made large votes of money to assist. [281]

    At the Glasgow Congress of 1876, Professor Hodgson, of Edinburgh, was our president.  In movements having industrial and economical sense, Professor Hodgson's name was oft mentioned as that of a great advocate of social justice whose pen and tongue could always be counted upon.  The working class Congress at Glasgow had ample proof of this.  Political economy has no great reputation for liveliness of doctrine or exposition; but in Professor Hodgson's hands its exposition was full of vivacity, and the illustrations of its principle were made luminous with wit and humour.

    At this Congress, Mr. J. W. A. Wright was present as a delegate from the Grangers of America, who had passed resolutions in their own Conferences to promote "Co-operation on the Rochdale plan."  Mr. Neale and Mr. Joseph Smith promoted an Anglo-American co-operative trading company.

    The Museum Hall, Leicester, was the place in which the Congress of 1877 was held.  The Hon. Auberon Herbert was president this year, and counselled us with impassioned frankness against the dangers of centralisation and described merit, unseen by us in the adjusting principle of competition.  He owned we might regard him as a devil's advocate, to which I answered that if he were so, we all agreed the devil had shown his excellent taste in sending us so earnest and engaging a representative.  For the first time a sermon was preached before the delegates by Canon Vaughan, whose discourse was singularly direct.  It dealt with the subject knowingly, and with that only; and the subject was not made—as preachers of the commoner sort have often made it—a medium of saying some thing else.  It dealt with Co-operation mathematically.  Euclid could not go from one point to another in a shorter way.  No delegate at the Congress could understand Co-operation better than the Canon; he made a splendid plea for what is regarded as an essential principle of Co-operation—the recognition of labour in productive industry—the partnership of the worker with capital.  The church was very crowded, and there was a large attendance of delegates.

    The Tenth Congress, that of 1878, was held in Manchester, where great changes had occurred since the Congress of 1870, Balloon Street had come to represent a great European buying agency; the Downing Street store had acquired some twelve branches, and the Congress of 1878 was more numerous and animated in proportion.  On the Sunday before it opened, the Rev. W. N. Molesworth, of Rochdale, preached before the delegates at the Cathedral, augmenting the wise suggestions and friendly counsel by which co-operators had profited in their earlier career.  The Rev. Mr. Steinthal also preached a sermon to us the same day.  The Marquis of Ripon presided at the Congress, recalling the delegates to the duty of advancing the neglected department of production.  We criticised with approval the Marquis's address.  My defence was that it was our custom, as we regarded the Presidential address as Parliament does a royal speech, concerning which Canning said Parliament receives no communication which it does not echo, and it echoes nothing which it does not discuss.  On the second day the Lord Bishop of Manchester presided, making one of those bright cheery addresses for which he was distinguished: showing real secular interest in co-operative things.  His religion, as is the characteristic of the religion of the gentleman, was never obtruded and never absent, being felt in every sentence, in the justice, candour, and sympathy shown towards those whose aims he discerned to be well intended, though they may have less knowledge, or other light than his, to guide them on their path.  The Rev. Mr. Molesworth presided on one day as he had done at the Congress of 1870.  Dr. John Watts was president on the last day, delivering an address marked by his unrivalled knowledge of co-operative business and policy, and that felicity of illustration whose light is drawn from the subject it illumines.

    There was one who died during this Congress time, once a familiar name—Mr. George Alexander Fleming.  Between 1835 and 1846 there was no Congress held at which he was not a principal figure.  He was editor nearly all the time (thirteen years) of the New Moral World, a well-known predecessor of the Co-operative News.  We used to make merry with his initials, "G. A. F.," but he was himself a practical, active agitator in the social cause.  A border Scot by birth (being born at Berwick, Northumberland), he had the caution of his countrymen north of the Tweed; and though he showed zeal for social ideas, he had no adventurous sympathy with the outside life of the world; and Socialism had an aspect of sectarianism in his hands.  He was an animated, vigorous speaker, and there was a business quality in his writings which did good service in his day.  After he left the movement he soon made a place for himself in the world.  Like many other able co-operators, he was not afraid of competition, and could hold his own amid the cunningest operators in that field.  He took an engagement on the Morning Advertiser, and represented that paper in the gallery of the House of Commons until his death.  He founded, or was chief promoter and conductor of, the South London Press.  He first became known to the public as an eloquent speaker in the "Ten Hours' Bill" movement.  All his life, to its close, he was a constant writer.  Of late years he was well known to visitors at the Discussion Hall, in Shoe Lane, and the "Forum," in Fleet Street.  He had reached seventy years of age, at which a man is called elderly.  About a year before, he married a second time.  He was buried at Nunhead.  Many years ago, at a dinner given at the Whittington Club to the chief Socialist advocates, he boasted, somewhat reproachfully, that he then obtained twice as much income for half the work he performed when connected with the social movement.  But that was irrelevant, for the best advocates in that movement did not expect to serve themselves so much as to serve others.  I have seen men die poor, and yet glad that they had been able to be of use to those who never even thought of requiting them.  The consciousness of the good they had done in that way was the reward they most cared for.  Mr. Fleming's merit was, that in the stormy and fighting days of the movement, he was one of the foremast men in the perilous fray, and therefore his name ought to be mentioned with regard in these pages.  Like all public men who once belonged to the social movement, he was constantly found advocating and supporting, by wider knowledge than his mere political contemporaries possessed, liberty both of social life and social thought.  I have often come upon unexpected instances in which he was true to old principles, and gave influence and argument to them, though quite out of sight of his old colleagues.

    The hospitality to delegates commenced at Newcastle-on-Tyne has been a feature with variations at most subsequent Congresses, the chief stores being mainly the hosts of the delegates.  In Bolton and in Leicester, as on the Tyneside and London, eminent friends of social effort among the people entertained many visitors.

    The Central Board have published a considerable series of tracts, handbooks, special pamphlets, and lectures by co-operative writers, and sums of money every year are devoted to their gratuitous circulation.  Any person wishing information upon the subject of Co-operation, or the formation of stores, or models of rules for the constitution of societies, can obtain them by applying to the Secretary of the Co-operative Union, Long Millgate, Manchester.

    The sons of industry owe respect to the co-operators who preceded them.  They furnished the knowledge by which we have profited.  They had more than hope where others had despair.  They saw progress where others saw nothing, and pointed to a path which industry had never before trodden.  The pioneers who have gone before have, like Marco Polo, or Columbus, or Sir Walter Raleigh, explored, so to speak, unknown seas of industry, have made maps of their course and records of their soundings.  We know where the hidden rocks of enterprise lie, and the shoals and whirlpools of discord and disunity.  We know what vortexes to avoid.  The earlier and later movement has been one army though it carried no hostile flags.  Its advocates were all members of one parliament, which, though several times prorogued, was never dissolved.

    A movement is like a river.  It percolates from an obscure source.  It runs at best but deviously.  It meets with an immovable obstacle and has to run round it.  It makes its way where the soil is most pervious to water, and when it has travelled through a great extent of country, its windings sometimes bring it back to a spot which is not far in advance of its source.  Eventually it trickles into unknown apertures which its own impetus and growing volume convert into a track.  Though making countless circuits, it ever advances to the sea; though it appears to wander aimlessly through the earth, it is always proceeding; and its very length of way implies more distributed fertilisation on its course.  So it is with human movements.  A great principle has often a very humble source.  It trickles at first slowly, uncertainly, and blindly.  It moves through society as the river does through the land.  It encounters understandings as impenetrable as granite, and has to find a passage through more impressionable minds; it digresses but never recedes.  Like the currents which aid the river, principle has pioneers who make a way for it, who, in they cannot blast the rocks of stupidity, excavate the more intelligent strata of society.  Though the way is long and lies through many a channel and maze, and though the new stream of thought seems to lose itself, the great current gathers unconscious force, new outlets seem to open or themselves, and in an unexpected hour the accumulated torrent of ideas bursts open a final passage to the great sea of truth.

 
CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE FUTURE OF CO-OPERATION

To the reader I owe an apology for having detained him so long over a story upon which I have lingered myself several years.  Imperious delays have beset me, until I have been like one driving a flock to market, who, having abandoned them for a time, has found difficulty in re-collecting them.  No doubt I have lost some, and have probably driven up some belonging to other persons, without being aware of the illicit admixture.

    Mr. Morris's lines, prefixed to this chapter, are not inapplicable to the story of labour seeking rights.  For myself I am no "singer," nor do I believe in the "empty day" which the poet modestly suggests.  No day is "empty" which contains a poet.  Nevertheless, I am persuaded that "the isle of bliss" will yet arise "midmost the beatings of the steely sea," and that the "ravening monsters," industrial and otherwise, which now intimidate society, "mighty men" will one day "slay."

    Society is improved by a thousand agencies.  I only contend that Co-operation is one.  Co-operation, I repeat, is the new force of industry which attains competency without mendicancy, and effaces inequality by equalising fortunes.  The equality contemplated is not that of men who aim to be equal to their superiors and superior to their equals.  The simple equality it seeks consists in the diffusion of the means of general competence, until every family is insured against dependence or want, and no man in old age, however unfortunate or unthrifty he may have been, shall stumble into pauperism.  His want of sense, or want of thrift, may rob him of repute or power, but shall never sink him so low that crime shall be justifiable, or his fate a scandal to any one save himself.  The road to this state of things is long, but at the end lies the pleasant Valley of Competence.

    There is no equality in nature, of strength or stature, of taste or knowledge, or force or faculty.  Many may row in the same boat, but, as Jerrold said, not with the same oars.  But there may be equivalence, though not equality in power: the sum of one man's powers may be equal to another's if we knew how to measure the degrees of their diversity.  It is in equality of opportunity of developing the qualities for good each man is endowed with, that is the immediate need of mankind.

    Machinery has become a power as great as though 100 millions of giants had entered Great Britain to work for its people.  And these giants never feel hunger, or passion, or weariness, and their power is immeasurable.  Yet the lot of the poor is precarious, and the very poor amount to millions.  Yet somehow the giants have not worked adequately for the many as yet.  It is true that a higher scale of life is reached by the poorer sort than of old; still they are but the servants of capital, and are hired.  Co-operation opens the door to partnership.

    When "Distribution shall undo excess and each man has enough" for secure existence, the baser incentives to greed, fraud, and violence will cease.  The social outrages, the coarseness of life, at which we are shocked, were once thought to be inevitable.  Our being shocked at them now is a sign of progress.  The steps of society are—(1) Savageness; (2) The mastership by chiefs of the ferocious; (3) The government of ferocity tempered by rude lawfulness; (4) Rude lawfulness matured into a general right of protection; (5) Protection insured by political representation; (6) Ascendancy of the people diminishing the arrogance and espionage of government; (7) Self-control matured into self-support; when the philanthropist becomes merely ornamental and charity and disease unnecessary evils.  We are far from that state yet; but Co-operation is the most likely thing apparent to accelerate the march to it.

    Sir Arthur Helps has told the public that "what Socialists are always aiming at is paternal government, under which they are to be spoilt children."  Sir Arthur must have in his mind State Socialists—very different persons from co-operators, who are Next Step takers.

    The co-operative form of progress is the organisation of self-help, in which the industrious do everything, and devise that order of things in which it shall be impossible for honest men to be idle or ignorant, depraved or poor: in which self-help supersedes patronage and paternalism.

    Co-operation has been retarded by a spurious order of "practical" men.  These kind of people would have stopped the creation of the world on the second day on the ground that it was no use going on.  Had the law of gravitation been explained to them, they would have passed an unanimous resolution to the effect that it was "impracticable."  Had the solar system been floated by a company they would not have taken a share in it, being perfectly sure it could never be made to work; or if it were started they would have assured us the planets would never keep time.  Were the sun to be discovered for the first time to-day they would not look at it, but declare it could never be turned to any useful account, and discourage investments in it, lest it should divert capital from the more important and more practical candle movement.  Had these people been told before they were born that they would be "fearfully and wonderfully made"—that the human frame would be very complicated—they would have been afraid to exist.  They would have looked at the nice adjustment of a thousand parts necessary to life, and they would have declared it impossible to live.

    The hopeless tone of many of the working class has been changed by Co-operation.  An artisan begins to see that he is a member of the Order of Industry, which ought to be the frankest, boldest, most self-reliant of all "Orders."  The Order of Thinkers are pioneers—the Order of Workmen are conquerors.  They subjugate Nature and turn the dreams of thought into realities of life.  Why, then, should not a workman always think and speak with evident consciousness of the dignity of his own order, and as one careful for its reputation?  It is absurd to see the sovereign people with a perpetual handkerchief at its eyes, and a constant hat in its hands.  The sovereign people should neither whine nor beg.  A workman having English blood in his veins should have some dignity in his manner.  More is expected from him than from the manacled negro, who could only put up his hands and cry, "Am I not a man and a brother?"  The English artisan ought to be a man whether a "brother or not."  I hate the people who wail.  Either their lot is not improvable, or it is.  If it be not improvable, wailing is weakness: if it be improvable, wailing is cowardice.

    When I first entered the social agitation long years ago, competition was a chopping-machine and the poor were always under the knife.  If an employer had a reasonable regard for the welfare of the operatives engaged by him, his manner was hard (as still is the manner of many), and never indicated good feeling.  He lacked that sympathy the want of which the late justice Talfourd said, was the great defect of the master class in England.  The master at best seemed to regard his men as a flock of wayward sheep, and himself as a sheep-dog.  He indeed kept the wolf from their door, but they were not sensible of the service, because he bit them when they turned aside.  Owing to this cause creditable kindness when displayed was not discerned.  At no time in my youth do I remember to have heard any expression which indicated esteem on the part of the employed towards their employers; and when I listened to the conversation of workmen in foundries and factories in the same town, or to that of workmen who came from distant places, it appeared that this state of feeling was general.  The men regarded their masters as commercial weasels who slept with one eye open, in order to see whether they neglected their work.  Employers looked upon their men as clocks which would not go, or which if they did were right only once in twenty-four hours; and that not through any virtue of their own, but because the right time came round to them.

    Employers now, as a rule, have more friendliness of manner.  Factory legislation has done much to improve the comfort of workshops and limit the labour of children and women.  Farm legislation will come, and do something to the same effect for agricultural working people.  Besides these, consideration, taste, and pride in employers have done more.  The warehouses of great towns are less hideous to look upon by the townspeople and less dreary to work in.  Workshops are in many places opulent and lofty, and are palaces of labour compared with the penitentiary structures, which deformed the streets and high-roads generations ago.  The old charnel houses of industry are being everywhere superseded.  Light, air, some grim kind of grace, make the workman's days healthier and pleasanter; and conveniences for his comfort and even education, never thought of formerly, are often supplied now.  The stores and mills erected by co-operators show that they have set their faces against the architects of ugliness, and the new standard can never go back among employers of greater pretensions.

    Under the self-supporting example of the common people the better classes may be expected to improve.  The working class will be no more told to look to frugality alone as their means of competence.  "Frugality" is oft the fair-sounding term in which the counsel of privation is disguised to the poor.  We shall see the opulent advised to practise the wholesome virtue of frugality (good for all conditions).  They might then live on much less than they now expend.  There then would remain an immense surplus, available for the public service, since the provident wealthy would not want it.  Advice cannot much longer be given to the people which is never taken by those who offer it, and which is intended to reconcile the many to an indefensible and unnecessary inequality.

    The unrest of competition produces disastrous consequences in diseases which strike down the most energetic men by day and night, without warning.  Some quieter method of progress will be wished for and be welcomed.  In the old times when none could read, save the priest and a few peers, learning was a passion, and the thoughtful monk, who had no worldly care or want, toiled in his cell from the pure love of study, and carried on the thought of the world as Bruno did, with no spur, save that supplied by genius and the love of truth. Now the printing-press has called into activity the intellect of mankind—ambition and emulation, industry and discovery, invention and art, will proceed by the natural force of thought, however Co-operation may prevail.  Indeed, Co-operation may facilitate them.  If Peace hath her victories as well as War—which a poet was first to see—concert in life has its million devices, activities, and inspirations.  The world will not be mute, nor men idle, because the brutal goad of competition no longer pricks them on to activity.  The future will not be less brilliant than the past, because its background is contentment instead of misery.

    People who say that the world would come to a standstill were it not for the pressure of hunger and poverty, and that we should all be idle were we not judiciously starved, should spend five minutes in the study of the ceaseless, joyous, and gratuitous activity of the first Lord Lytton.  Of high lineage, of good fortune, of capacity which understood life without effort, occupying a position which commanded deference, and of personal qualities which secured him friends, he had only to live to be distinguished, yet this man, as baronet and peer, worked as many hours of his own will as any mechanic in the land, and of his own natural love of activity created for the world more pleasant reading than all the House of Lords put together, save Macaulay.

    The present casts its light of change some distance before, and the near future can be discerned—Co-operation bids fair to clear the sight of the industrial class as to what they can do for themselves.

    Men as a rule have not half the brains of bees.  Bees respect only those who contribute to the common store, they keep no terms with drones, but drag them out and make short work with them.  Men suffer the drones to become kings of the hive, and pay them homage.  Co-operators of the earliest type set their faces against uselessness.  With all their sentimentality they kept no place for drones.  They did not mean to be mendicants themselves nor to have mendicants in their ranks.  They had no plan either of indoor or outdoor relief for them.  The first number of the Co-operative Magazine for 1826 made its first condition of happiness to consist in "occupation."  Avoidable dependence will come to be deemed ignominious.  As wild beasts retreat before the march of civilisation, so pauperism will retreat before the march of co-operative industry.  Pauperism will be put down as the infamy of industry.  A million paupers—a vast standing army of mendicants—in the midst of the working class is a reproach to every workman now.  Workmen will learn to clear their way, and pay their way, as the middle-class have learned to do.  Every law which deprives industry of a fair chance, or facilitates the accumulation of immense fortunes, and checks the equitable distribution of property, will be stopped, as far as legitimate legislation can stop it.  Not long since a politician so experienced as Louis Blanc made a great speech in Paris, in which he said, "Most frankly he admitted that the problem of the extinction of pauperism, which he believed possible, was too vast and complicated to be treated without modesty and prudence, and he would even add, doubt."  In our English Parliament I have heard ministers use similar language, without seeming aware that no legislature would extinguish pauperism if it could.  If the proposal was seriously made, on every bench in the House of Commons, peer and squire and manufacturer would jump up in dismay and apprehension.  The sudden "extinction of pauperism" would produce consternation in town and county throughout the land.  Were there no paupers there would be no poor.  Nobody would be dependent, service of the humble kind that now ministers to ostentatious opulence would cease.  The pride, power, and influence that comes from almsgiving would end.  In England, as in America, the "servant" would disappear and in his place would arise a new class, limited and costly, who would only engage themselves as "helpers" and equals.  Besides, there would be in Great Britain opposition among the paupers themselves.  The majority of them do not want to be abolished.  They have been reared under the impression that they have a vested interest in charity—humiliation sits easy upon them.  It is not Acts of Parliament that can do much to alter this, it is the means of self-help which alone can bring it to pass.

    At a public meeting in the metropolis, some years ago, Prince Albert was one of the speakers, and he was on the occasion surrounded by many noblemen.  The subject of his speech was improvement in the condition of the indigent.  The Prince, looking around him at the wealthy lords on the platform, and to some poor men in the meeting, said, very gracefully, "We," looking again at a duke near him, "to whom Providence has given rank, wealth, and education, ought to do what lies in our power for the less fortunate."  This was very generous of the Prince, but men look now for a surer deliverance.  Providence was not the benefactor of princes and dukes.  He gave them no possessions.  They got them in a very different way.  The wealth of nature is given to all, not to the few, and Co-operation furnishes means of attaining it to all who have honesty, sense, and unity.

    Nothing is more astounding to students of industrial progress than to observe among commercial men and politicians the utter absence of any idea of distribution of gains among the people.  The only concern is that the capitalist or the individual dealer shall profit.  It is nobody's concern that the community should profit.  It is nobody's idea that everybody should profit by what man's genius creates.  It does not enter into any mind that disproportionate wealth is an aggressive accumulation of means in the hands of a few which ought to be, as far as possible, diffusible in equity among all for mutual protection.  The feudalism of capital is as dangerous as that of arms.

    It was stated by the editor of the Co-operative Magazine in 1826, in very explicit terms, that "Mr. Owen does not propose that the rich should give up their property to the poor; but that the poor should be placed in such a situation as would enable them to create new wealth for themselves." [282] This is what Co-operation is intended to do, and this, let us hope, it will do.

    The instinct of Co-operation is self-help.  Only men of independent spirit are attracted by it.  The intention of the co-operator has been never to depend upon parliamentary consideration for help, nor upon the sympathy of the rich for charity, nor upon pity nor the prayer of the priest.  The co-operator may be a believer, and generally is, but he is self reliant in the first place, and a believer in the second.  Pity is out of his way, because he does not like to distress people to give it.  Help by prayer is the most compendious and easy way of getting it, but the co-operator, who is generally a modest man, does not like to give the priest the trouble of procuring it, whose machinery seems never in order when it is most wanted to work.  When the working class have learnt the lesson of self-support and self-protection there may be piety and devotion and the love of God among them, but they will owe their fortunes to themselves.  Co-operators know, however excellent faith may be, it is not business.  No trades union can obtain an increase of wages by faith.  No employer will give a man a good engagement in consideration of what he believes.  His chances entirely depend on what he can do.  The most celebrated manufacturing firm would be ruined in repute if the twelve apostles worked for it, unless they knew their business.  Piety, ever so conspicuous, fetches no price in the labour market.  There is no creed the profession of which will induce a Chancellor of the Exchequer to remit the assessed taxes, or a magistrate to excuse the non-payment of local rates.  People have been misled by the well-intentioned but mischievous lesson which has taught them to employ mendicant supplication to Heaven.  When the evil day comes—when the parent has no means of supporting his family or discharging his duty as a citizen—the Churches render no help, the State admits of no excuse: it accords nothing but the contemptuous charity of the poor law.  The day of self-help has come, and this will be the complexion of the future.

    Co-operation, in imparting the power of self-help, abates that distrust which has kept the people down.  Above all projects of our day co-operative industry has mitigated the wholesale suspicion of riches and capitalists.  This means good understanding in the future between those who have saved money, and the many who need to save it, and mean to save it.  The old imbecility of poverty is disappearing.  The incapacitating objection to paying interest for money is scarcely visible anywhere.  What does it matter how rich another grows, whether he be capitalist or employer, whether he be called master or millionaire, providing he who is poor can contrive to attain competence by his own aid?  Jealousy or distrust of another's success is only justifiable when he bars the way to those below him, equally entitled to a reasonable chance of rising.  War upon the rich is only lawful when, not content with their own good fortune, they close every door upon the poor, give no heed to their just claims, deny them, whether by law or combination, fair means of self-help, discouraging the honest, the industrious, and the thrifty from ascending the ladder of prosperity on which they have mounted.  Property has no rights in equity when it owns no obligation of justice, and ceases to be considerate to others.  If the wealthy proposed to kill the indigent, they would provoke a war in which the slain would not be all on one side; and since the powerful must consent to the weak existing, that consent implies the right of the weak to live, and the right to live includes the right to a certain share of the wealth of the community, proportionate to the labour and skill they contribute in creating it.  Property has to provide for this or must permit it to be provided by others, or it will be itself in jeopardy.  The power of creating a pacifying distribution of means is afforded by practical Co-operation.  As I have said, it asks no aid from the State; it petitions for no gift, disturbs no interests, attacks nobody's fortune, attempts no confiscation of existing gains, but clears its own ground, gathers in its own harvest, distributes the golden grain equitably among all the husbandmen.  Without needing favours or incurring obligations, it establishes the industrious classes among the possessors of the fruits of the earth.  As the power of self-existence in nature includes all other attributes, so self-help in the people includes all the conditions of progress.  Co-operation is organised self-help—that is what the complexion of the future will be.

 
CHAPTER XXXIX.

AN OUTSIDE CHAPTER

Reply to "Fraser's Magazine."—The only notice of my first volume to which I desire to reply is one which Professor Newman did me the honour to make in Fraser. [283]  Mr. Newman was alike incapable of being unfair or unjust, and to me he had been neither, but he had misconceived what I had said about State Socialism and capitalists.  I blame no one who misconceives my word—I blame myself.  It is the duty of a writer to be so clear that obtuseness cannot misapprehend him nor malice pervert what he says.  Mr. Newman was neither obtuse nor malicious.  Few men saw so clearly as he into social questions, or were so considerate as he in his objections.  He scrupulously said I had, "unawares" and "inconsistently" with my known views, fallen into errors.  Mr. Newman did me the honour to remember that I try with what capacity I have not to be foolish, and that I regard unfairness and even inaccuracy of statement as of the nature of a crime against truth.

    I quoted the edict of Babeuf (p. 25, vol. i.), "That they do nothing for the country who do not serve it by some useful occupation," to show that the most extreme communists kept no terms either with "laziness or plunder"—the two sins usually charged against these theorists.  From this Mr. Newman concluded that I would deny persons the right to enjoy inherited property.  Writers on property are accustomed to enumerate but three ways of acquiring it—namely, to earn it, to beg it, or to steal it.  Mr. Newman's sagacity enabled him to point out a fourth way—persons may inherit it.  I confess this did not occur to me, nor did I ask myself whether Babeuf thought of it.  I took his edict to apply only to persons for whose welfare the State made itself responsible.  It was in this sense only that I thought it right that all should be "usefully occupied."

    Mr. Newman said, "I would fain pass off" Mr. Owen's administration of the New Lanark Mills "as Co-operation."  Surely I would not.  Mr. Newman said, "Mr. Owen patronised the workman."  Certainly—that is exactly what he did, and this is what I do not like.  It was at best but a good sort of despotism, and had the merit of being better than the bad sort.  He proved that equity, though paternally conceded, paid, which no manufacturer had made publicly clear before.

    One who has not written on this subject, Mr. John Bright, but who is as famous for his familiarity with it, as for his readiness in repartee, said to me, "There is one thing in your book to which I object—you speak of the tyranny of capital."  "But it was not in my mind," I rejoined.  "But it is in your book," was the answer.  No reply could be more conclusive.  Capital may be put to tyrannical uses; but capital itself is the independent, passionless means of all material progress.  It is only its misuse against which we have to provide, and I ought to have been careful to have said so.

    For State Socialism I have less than sympathy, I have dislike.  Lassalle and Marx, of the same race, Comte and Napoleon III. are all identifiable by one sign—they ridicule the dwarfish efforts of the slaves of wages to transform capitalistic society.  Like the Emperor of the French, they overflow with what seems eloquent sympathy for helpless workmen ground to powder in the mill of capital.  They all mean that the State will grind them in a more benevolent way of its own, if working men will abjure politics, and submit themselves to the paternal operators who alone know what is best for them.

    There was a German Disraeli—namely, Prince Bismarck—who befriended the German Jew as Lord Derby did the English one.  It was Ferdinand Lassalle, handsome, unscrupulous, a dandy with boundless bounce; a Sybarite in his life, beaming in velvet, jewellery, and curly hair, who affected to be the friend of the working class.  Deserting the party to which he belonged for not appreciating him, he turned against it, and conceived the idea of organising German workmen as a political force to oppose the middle class, exactly as the Chartists were used in England.  Lassalle's language to the working men was that "they could not benefit themselves by frugality or saving—the cruel, brazen law of wages made individual exertion unavailing—their only trust was in State help."  With all who disliked exertion Lassalle was popular; for there were German jingoes in his day.  By dress and parade he kept himself distinguished, and also obtained an annuity from a Countess who much exceeded his age.  The author of "Vivian Grey" was distanced by Lassalle, who told the world that "he wrote his pamphlets armed with all the culture of his century."  In other respects he showed less skill than his English rival.  Mr. Disraeli insulted O'Connell whom it was known would not fight a duel, and then challenged his son Morgan, whom he had not insulted, and who declined to fight until he was.  Disraeli prudently did not qualify him.  Lassalle, less weary, discerned no discretionary course, and Count Rackonitz shot him, otherwise Bismarck would have been superseded at the Berlin Congress, and a German Beaconsfield had been President.  In blood, religion, and policy, in manners and ambition, and in success (save in duelling) both men were the same.  Our Conservative Lassalle had an incubator of State Socialism for this country and the Young England party carne out of it.

    Co-operative Methods in 1828.—In 1828, when Lord John Russell was laying the foundation-stone of the British Schools in Brighton, Dr. King was writing to Lord Brougham, then Henry Brougham, M.P., an account of the then new scheme of Co-operative Stores.  It is a practical, well-written appeal to a statesman, and enables us to see what Brougham had the means of knowing at that early period of the nature of Co-operation as a new social force.  The following is Dr. King's statement:—

"A number of persons in Brighton, chiefly of the working class, having read works on the subject of Co-operation, conceived the possibility of reducing it to practice in some shape or other.  They accordingly formed themselves into a society, and met once a week for reading and conversation on the subject; they also began a weekly subscription of 1d.  The numbers who joined were considerable—at one time upwards of 170; but, as happens in such cases, many were lukewarm and indifferent, and the numbers fluctuated.  Those who remained showed at once an evident improvement of their minds.  When the subscriptions amounted to £5 the sum was invested in groceries, which were retailed to the members.  Business kept increasing, the first week the amount sold was half-a-crown; it is now about £38.  The profit is about 10 per cent.; so that a return of £20 a week pays all expenses, besides which the members have a large room to meet in and work in.  About six months ago the society took a lease of twenty-eight acres of land, about nine miles from Brighton, which they cultivate as a garden and nursery out of their surplus capital.  They employ on the garden, out of seventy-five members, four, and sometimes five men, with their own capital.  They pay the men at the garden 14s. a week, the ordinary rate of wages in the country being 10s., and of parish labourers 6s.  The men are also allowed rent and vegetables.  They take their meals together.  One man is married and his wife is housekeeper.

    "The principle of the society is—the value of labour.  The operation is by means of a common capital.  An individual capital is an impossibility to the workman, but a common capital not.  The advantage of the plan is that of mutual insurance; but there is an advantage beyond, viz., that the workman will thus get the whole produce of his labour to himself; and if he chooses to work harder or longer, he will benefit in proportion.  If it is possible for men to work for themselves, many advantages will arise.  The other day they wanted a certain quantity of land planted before the winter.  Thirteen members went from Brighton early in the morning, gave a day's work, performed the task, and returned home at night.  The man who formerly had the land, when he came to market, allowed himself 10s. to spend.  The man who now comes to market for the society is contented with 1s. extra wages.  Thus these men are in a fair way to accumulate capital enough to find all the members with constant employment; and of course the capital will not stop there.  Other societies are springing up.  Those at Worthing and Finden are proceeding as prosperously as ours, only on a smaller scale.  If Co-operation be once proved practicable, the working classes will soon see their interest in adopting it.  If this goes on, it will draw labour from the market, raise wages, and so operate upon pauperism and crime.  All this is pounds, shillings, and pence; but another most important feature remains.  The members see immediately the value of knowledge.  They employ their leisure time in reading and mutual instruction.  They have appointed one of their members librarian and schoolmaster; he teaches every evening.  Even their discussions involve both practice and theory, and are of a most improving nature.  Their feelings are of an enlarged, liberal, and charitable description.  They have no disputes, and feel towards mankind at large as brethren.  The élite of the society were members of the Mechanics' Institution, and my pupils, and their minds were no doubt prepared there for this society.  It is a happy consummation.

    "In conclusion, I beg to propose to your great and philanthropic mind the question as to how such societies may be affected by the present state of the law; or how far future laws may be so framed as to operate favourably to them.  At the same time, they ask nothing from any one but to be let alone, and nothing from the law but protection.  As I have had the opportunity of watching every step of this society, I consider their case proved; but others at a distance will want further experience.  If the case is proved, I consider it due to you, sir, as a legislator, philosopher, and the friend of man, to lay it before you.  This society will afford you additional motives for completing the Library of Useful Knowledge—the great forerunner of human improvement."

    The First Sales of the Rochdale Pioneers.—In 1866, when Mr. Samuel Ashworth left the Rochdale store to manage the Manchester Wholesale Society, a presentation was made to him in the Board Room of the Corn Mill.  A correspondent of the Working Man sent to me at the time these particulars, not published save in that journal.  In the course of the proceedings Mr. William Cooper related how he and Samuel Ashworth were among the first persons who served customers in the store in Toad Lane; when it was opened in 1844 for sales of articles in the grocery business.  "We then," said Mr. Cooper,

"sold goods at the store about two nights in the week, opening at about eight o'clock p.m., and closing in two hours after.  Mr. Ashworth served in the shop one week, and I the week following.  We gave our services for the first three months, except that the committee bought each of us a pair of white sleeves—something like butchers wear on their arms, to make us look tidy and clean, and, if the truth is to be owned, I daresay they were to cover the grease which stuck to and shone upon our jacket sleeves as woollen weavers.  At that time every member that worked for the store, whether as secretary, treasurer, purchaser, or auditor, did it for the good of the society, without any reward in wages or salary.

    "When Samuel Ashworth joined the society, in 1844, he was only nineteen years of age.  He was behind the counter on December 21, 1844, that memorable day when the shutters were first taken down from the shop-front in Toad Lane, and was one of those stared at by every passer-by.  The stock with which the co-operators opened the shop was as follows: 1 qr. 22 lb. of butter, 2 qrs. of sugar, 3 sacks of flour at 37s. 6d., and 3 sacks at 36s., 2 dozen of candles, and 1 sack of meal.  The total cost of this stock was £16 11s. 11d.; and it appeared they must have had a fortnight's stock of flour, for there was none bought the second week.  The second week the stock was slightly decreased, the amount of purchases for the fortnight being £24 14s. 7d."

    Those goods Samuel Ashworth and William Cooper had the pleasure of selling as unpaid shopkeepers—"a bad precedent," remarked Mr. Ashworth, in the course of a speech made by him, "because even now some of their members do not like to pay their servants the best of wages."  It is instructive to compare the difference between the weekly sale of goods during the first fortnight of the society's existence, and their weekly sales twelve years later:—
 

    Subsequently, when the price of sugar was rapidly rising, Mr. Ashworth ordered 50 tons of sugar in three days, and on another occasion he gave an order for 4,000 sacks of flour at once.  The weekly receipts during the first fortnight of the society's operations did not average £10, twelve years later, in 1866, the weekly sales were £4,822.

    The End of the Orbiston Community.—The most interesting and authentic account of Orbiston, its objects, principles, financial arrangements, and end, is that given in the newspapers of 1829 and 1830.  The following appeared under the head of "Law Intelligence—Vice Chancellor's Court"—JONES v. MORGAN AND OTHERS—THE SOCIALISTS.—This case came before the court upon the demurrer of a lady, named Rathbone, put in to a Bill filed by several shareholders of the Orbiston Company, on the ground that such shareholders had contributed more than was justly due from them, and to recover the excess.  The grounds of the demurrers were want of equity.  The case came before the court upon the demurrer of a person named Cooper.  The facts appeared to be these: In the year 1825 a number of persons joined together, for the purpose of forming a socialist or communist society, under the superintendence of Mr. Robert Owen, the professed object of which was to promote the happiness of mankind.  The company was to consist of shareholders, the shares being fixed at £250 (though after the formation of the company they were reduced to £200 each), and it being further agreed that for the first year no shareholder should be allowed to hold more than ten shares, but that after the lapse of one year from the formation of the society, such stock as should then be unappropriated might be disposed of among the members of the company.  The capital was not to exceed £50,000.  The company eventually purchased 280 acres of land from General Hamilton, at Orbiston, in Scotland, as the site of the proposed establishment, for which they consented to pay £19,995.  This money was borrowed in three several sums of £12,000 from the Union Scotch Assurance Company, £3,000 from a Mr. Ainslie, and the remainder from another quarter.  The articles of agreement were then drawn up.  The right of voting was to be vested in the shareholders proportionately to the amount of their respective shares.  The necessary buildings were to be erected, and the necessary utensils supplied, and the company were to be empowered to borrow money upon the security of the joint property.  Several trustees were named, the first being a Mr. Combe, to whom the estate was accordingly conveyed.  The following are some of the general articles agreed on: "Whereas the assertion of Robert Owen, who has had much experience in the education of children, that principles as certain as the science of mathematics may be applied to the forming any general character, and that by the influence of other circumstances not a few individuals only, but the population of the whole world, may in a few years be rendered a very far superior race of beings to any now on the face of the earth, or who have ever existed, an assertion which implies that at least nine-tenths of the crime and misery which exist in the world have been the necessary consequence of errors in the present system of instruction, and not of imperfection implanted in our nature by the Creator, and that it is quite practical to form the minds of all children that are born so that at the age of twelve years their habits and ideas shall be far superior to those of the individuals termed learned men. . . . And that under a proper direction of manual labour Great Britain and its dependencies may be made to support an incalculable increase of population."  The 21st article provided for a dissolution of the society if it should be found necessary: "That if, unhappily, experience should demonstrate to the satisfaction of the majority of proprietors that the new system introduced and recommended by R. Owen has a tendency to produce, in the aggregate, as much ignorance in the midst of knowledge, as much poverty in the midst of excessive wealth, as much illiberality and hypocrisy, as much overbearing and cruelty, and fawning and severity, as much ignorant conceit, as much dissipation and debauchery, as much filthiness and brutality, as much avarice and unfeeling selfishness, as much fraud and dishonesty, as much discord and violence, as have invariably attended the existing system in all ages, then shall the property be let to individuals acting under the old system, or sold to defray the expenses of the institution."  In 1825 the society entered upon the estate, and the lands were divided among the tenants.  Among the original shareholders was the present demurring defendant, Cooper, who took one share, for which he paid £20 as an instalment, that he had borrowed from Mr. Hamilton, on the understanding that unless the loan were repaid by Cooper within two years, the property should belong to Mr. Hamilton.  At the several meetings that subsequently took place Cooper did not attend, but deputed the trustee, Mr. Combe, to act for him, as he was permitted to do by the original agreement.  In 1827 it was ascertained that the speculation did not answer, as the company was proved to be involved in debt to a considerable amount, so as to make it necessary that the property should be sold and the establishment broken up.  Accordingly, in 1828, the sale of the estate was effected, and £15,000, the purchase-money, subject to certain deductions, transferred to the Scotch Assurance Company, as a repayment of their loan.  A considerable balance of debts to other parties, however, still remained due, for which the shareholders became liable.  Several suits were prepared in Scotch courts, during which the estates of the shareholders were declared liable, and several accordingly had paid much beyond what was due, proportionately on the amount of their shares.  Of the original shareholders many were now dead, many out of the jurisdiction of the court, and many in hopelessly insolvent circumstances.—Mr. Rolt appeared in support of the demurrer.—In consequence of the absence of Mr. James Parker, who was engaged in the Lord Chancellor's Court, the further arguments were ordered to stand over.  The "further arguments" I have not been able to procure.

    The End of the Queenwood Community.—The reader has seen in the chapter on "Lost Communities" the closing days of Queenwood.  Twenty years after, in 1865, a suit in Chancery being instituted, the property was sold and the assets distributed.

    After paying the expenses allowed by the court and one creditor, who was held to be entitled to be paid in full to the extent of £15 10s. 10d., there remained for division £6,226 19s. 5d. amongst the several persons in the proportions hereunder mentioned.

    All those who had to receive less than £10 obtained it from Messrs. Ashurst, Morris & Co., of 6, Old Jury, London; those whose dividends exceeded £10 received payment from the Accountant-General, on being identified by a solicitor upon such application.

    The following is a list of the persons and amounts payable to them:—

    The expenses incurred by Mr. Pare in carrying out this suit amounted to £360.  The suits were conducted by Mr. George Davis of Mr. Ashurst's firm, and it was owing to his skill, resource, and mastery of the case that the money recovered reached so large an amount.  The defaulting trustees endeavoured to defame the principles of Mr. Owen, and to prejudice the Master of the Rolls against the case; it was a matter of justice that they should be defeated.  Sir John Romilly exceeded all that was to be expected of any judge, and he refused to allow the trustees to escape by these means, which in days not then long gone would have been successful.  Mr. Davis's control of the case was surrounded with difficulties which would have deterred many solicitors, and placed the creditors who benefited by his judgment and success under great obligation to him.

    Reciprocity in Shopkeeping.—Often contending that it was in the power of shopkeepers of wit to apply Co-operation to their own business, I wrote a circular for a Glasgow tea merchant, who had a large establishment at 508, Gallowgate, who preferred candour and business explicitness, setting forth the new method of dealing.  Being the first document of the kind, it may be instructive to tradesmen.  Mr. John McKenzie, the tea merchant in question, thus introduced the principle of Reciprocity:—

    "Every one, whether he has been in business or not, knows that the natural competition of trade keeps the shopkeeper's profits low; and if he makes any gift to his customers upon small purchases, he must be a loser by it.  If, therefore, a customer is offered such gifts, he has good reason to suppose that the articles he buys are inferior to what they ought to be, and if he does suppose it, he will commonly be right.

    "The only way in which profits can be made in business is by numerous customers, and consequently large sales, which enable the shopkeeper to buy in the best markets.  It is by this reciprocity alone that profit can arise which can be divided with purchasers.  Therefore, if customers make purchases to the necessary amount, a real reciprocal plan of giving dividends on purchases can be carried out.

    "The tea trade is one of the best fitted of any business for applying this reciprocity principle, and we have arranged to make the experiment for one year, dating from January, 1878.

    "Therefore upon every purchase of tea of the amount of 4d. and upwards a metal warrant will be given, and when these warrants amount to 5s. a return will be made of 4d. in money, which amounts to a dividend of 1s. 4d. in the £ sterling.

    "We prefer paying the dividend to purchasers in money as the honest way.  When the public have the money in their hands they know that they have their money's worth, which they are not sure of when they are paid a dividend in articles of doubtful value and more doubtful use.  We try this experiment because we think a practical and simple form of reciprocity is possible in shop-keeping, and believe that if the public understand it they will try it, and if they do try it they will find it satisfactory.

    "The public are not generally aware what interest they have in buying the best teas.  The Government duty is uniform, and is sixpence each pound weight upon good and bad teas alike; so that if a purchaser buys twenty shillings' worth of 'cheap' tea, at 1s. 8d. per pound, he pays six shillings in duty, or a Government tax of 30 per cent., while if he bought twenty shillings worth of very fine tea, at 3s. 4d. per pound, he only pays three shillings duty, or a Government tax of 15 per cent., and has the value of the other 15 per cent. in high quality.  Thus the public, not being acquainted with the subject, buy 'cheap' tea, not knowing that it is the dearest tea, and not only dear, but often dangerous, and they are taxed enormously for drinking it.  Whereas the best tea is not only greatly cheaper but a luxury to drink, and goes further, because it has real quality.  We have never sought to sell 'cheap' but 'good' teas.  We have made our business by it, and we do not doubt being believed by any who make the experiment of buying from us.

    "With accessible, convenient, and commodious premises, and a well-organised service, it is possible for us to sell a larger quantity of tea without increased expenses, and it is the profit upon increased sales, without increased expenses, that enables a dividend to be given. We can thus give (with a dividend of 1s. 4d. in the £) the same superior quality of tea which we have always supplied.

    "This is our whole case.  Were it not explained, the public might think it a new device to allure custom by seeming to make a gift for which the purchaser paid either in price or quality of the article he bought.  Any sensible person can understand the good faith of the plan.  We make no change in price—no change in quality.  The dividend is given out of economy made by larger sales.  It would be dishonest to promise what we could not perform, and foolish to promise what the public did not see could be performed.  We have, therefore, frankly explained the grounds on which we ask the support of the public in this experiment of honest and substantial dividends in the tea trade, on the fair principle of reciprocity."

    Progress of Co-operative Workshops.—The Marquis of Ripon's address to the Congress of Manchester, 1878, which drew attention to the tardy progress of Co-operative Production, increased public interest in it.  As yet competitive employers in many towns are before co-operative employers in extending the participation of profits to labour.  What visitors to Nottingham hear from workmen in Mr. Samuel Morley's lace factories in that town, would make a remarkable and pleasant chapter in the history of workshops.  Some time ago I received from an eminent auctioneer's firm in London (Debenham and Storr) their scheme of the recognition of skill, goodwill, and assiduity in business among their employees, which had many equitable and kind features.  The statement had been prepared for the Right Hon. W. H. Smith, who is known to have established similar arrangements in his great business.

    Co-operation Proposed to Pope Pius IX.—Astute co-operators, with a turn of mind for State Socialism, followed in the footsteps of Mr. Owen, and sought to interest courts and clergy in their schemes.  Mr. John Minter Morgan was so sanguine of this kind of success, that he sought an audience with the Pope in 1847.  In May, 1846, he had held a public meeting in Exeter Hall, London, at which the Bishop of Norwich, Lord John Manners, and Sir Harry Verney were present.  The object was to promote self-supporting villages for people destitute of employment.  The number of persons in each village was to be 300, and £40,000 was the capital required for the undertaking.  A vague reference occurred in the prospectus to "the period when the inmates would become proprietors"; but whether self-government was then to be a right was not mentioned.  The village was to be a place under favourable conditions of religion, morals, health, and industry, into which people were to be invited to come and be good.  There were to be two rulers, a resident clergyman and a director; and if they were genial and tolerant gentlemen, a pleasant tame life, undisturbed by Nonconformists or politics, could be had.  The Secretaries of the scheme were the Rev. Edmund R. Larken, afterwards one of the principal proprietors of the Leader newspaper; the Rev. Joseph Brown, who gave poor London children happy days at Ham Common every year; and Mr. Morgan himself.  If the projected villages were to be directed in the spirit of these gentlemen they would surely have been happy and popular.  There were three bishops, those of Exeter, St. David's, and Norwich, Vice-Presidents of the Village Society.  Considering how angry the Bishop of Exeter was at Mr. Owen's community schemes, it was a great triumph of Mr. Morgan to induce this bishop to be Vice-President of another.  Lord John Manners, Mr. Monckton Milnes, M.P. (now Lord Houghton), the Hon. W. F. Cowper (now Mr. Cowper-Temple, M.P.) were upon the committee, which included eighteen clergymen.  Though these probably had Church objects in view, the majority, like Mr. Cowper-Temple, whom we know as a real friend of Co-operation, were doubtless mainly actuated by a single desire to advance the social improvement of the people.  Their prospectus said that "competition in appealing to selfish motives only, enriching the few and impoverishing the many, is a false and unchristian principle, engendering a spirit of envy and rivalry."

    In 1847 Mr. Morgan carried his model and paintings, of his village scheme to Rome; he says contemptuously that "the British Consular Agent, being more favourable to Free Trade and the general principles of Political Economy, took no interest in the plan."  At length Monsignor Corboli Bussi, Private and Confidential Secretary to the Pope, "devoted nearly an hour and a half to an examination of the plan, and informed Mr. Morgan that His Holiness would meet him at three o'clock or half-past three, as he descended to walk that day, February 23rd, 1847, and that Mr. Morgan was to attend on Monsignor Maestro de Camera, in his apartment a little before three."

    On that afternoon the Peripatetic Communist and the Pope were to be seen in consultation together.  His Holiness commended the object, and said the painting had been explained to him.  Mr. Morgan asked the Pope to commend his plan to the Catholics.  He said he would speak to Mr. Freeborn, the Consular Agent.  Mr. Morgan wrote to that unsympathetic Consular Agent, who never replied.  Then Mr. Morgan prayed Monsignor Bussi that "His Holiness should be pleased to direct that he, Mr. Morgan, should be honoured with a letter implying, in such terms as his superior wisdom and goodness would dictate, that the theory of the plan appeared to be unobjectionable, and that he would be glad to hear of experiments being made according to local circumstances."  "Such a letter," Mr. Morgan added, "would not be incompatible with the rule which he understood His Holiness observed of not interfering with the temporal affairs of other countries."

    Mr. Morgan's transparent painting was sent back to him with the civil intimation that the Holy Father and August Sovereign had "gone so far as to remit the printed exposition which accompanied Mr. Morgan's project to the examination of the Agricultural Commission, presided over by His Eminence Cardinal Massimo."

    The Christian Village propagandist had interviews with Cardinal Massimo, and sent to the Pope the assurance that, "that which peculiarly distinguished the proposed Christian colony from the constitution of society in general, was the power which it afforded of maintaining the supremacy of religion, not only in theory and in precept, and in framing the laws and regulations, but by suppressing and prohibiting all institutions, practices, and influences calculated to impair the love of God and man as the ruling principle of action."

    There is no more instructive example than this of what state or clerical socialism comes to.  Never before was such a proposal carried to Rome by an English Protestant gentleman.  It was an offer to place Co-operative Industrialism under the conditions of an absolute clerical despotism, which might include an Inquisition in every village.  No poverty, no precariousness of competitive life is more abject or humiliating than this tutelage and control.

    Mgr. John Corboli Bussi wrote Mr. Morgan from Quirinal Palace, April 18, 1847, saying, "Very willingly I will place under the eyes of His Holiness, my august sovereign, the note you have remitted: and afterwards, as I suppose, it will be communicated to the Agricultural Commission.  But I am not able to foresee the result.  Certainly I cannot but praise your moral principles and judgment, and I believe every generous and religious heart would partake of them.  But as to the application of these principles to the economy of a country like ours I could not dare to have an opinion."

    Thus ended the negotiations between Mr. Morgan and the Pope.  Some respect is due to the Vatican for allowing the proposal made to it—to pass out of sight.


    When old feudality disappeared, and the serf-class passed into dependence upon the capitalist class, anybody with eyes that could see social effects discerned that wages which gave industrial freedom would lead to growing intelligence and social aspiration, which being constantly checked by the powerful ambition of capital, there would be never-ending hostility between capital and labour.  This opened a field which unscrupulous adventurers could enter and obtain a following, by promising workmen political deliverance.  When working people came to have votes, the same adventurers taught them distrust of their own efforts, distrust of the middle class, who were nearest to them in sympathy, and who alone stood between the people and the sole rule of the aristocracy.  When this distrust was well diffused, these skilful professors of sympathy with the people asked for their confidence at the poll, which, as soon as it was obtained, they set up Personal Government, and put a sword to the throats of those who had given them power, as the Emperor Napoleon did.  State Socialism means the promise of a dinner, and a bullet when you ask for it.  It never meant anything else and never gave anything else.  Co-operation is the discovery of the means by which an industrious man can provide his own dinner without depriving any one else of his.

 
CHAPTER XL.

THE SONG OF STATE SOCIALISM

FEUDALITY is not out of the bones of people in England, even now.  Free workmen still expect from employers something of the gifts and care of vassalage, though they no longer render vassal service.  Landlords still look for the allegiance of their tenants, notwithstanding that they charge them rent for their lands.  In other countries, Despotism, tempered by paternal government, trains the people to look for State redress and State management.  State Socialism seems one of the diseases of despotism, whose policy it is to encourage dependence.

    The working man, with no fortune save his capacity of industry, lives under the despotism of Trade, which, better than the despotism of Government, leaves him the freedom of opportunity.  He remains subject to the precariousness of hire.  It is labour being imprisoned in the cage of wages, that has inclined its ear to the sirens of State Socialism.  Ferdinand Lassalle, Karl Marx, and Lord Beaconsfield—three Jewish leaders whose passion has been ascendancy, have all sung in varying tunes the same song.  Lassalle cried aloud to German workmen: "Put no trust in thrift.  The cruel, brazen law of wages makes individual exertion unavailing.  Look to State help."  Marx exclaimed: "Despise this dwarfish redress the laves of capital can win."  Disraeli sent the Young England party to offer patrician sympathy, maypoles, and charity.  Auguste Comte proposed confidence and a plentiful trencher.  The Emperor Napoleon told French artisans that "Industry was a machine working without a regulator, totally unconcerned about its moving power, crushing beneath its wheels both men and matter."  They were all known by one sign—Paternal Despotism.  They all sang the same song—"Abjure politics, party, and self-effort, and the mill of the State, which we shall turn, will grind you benevolently in a way of its own."  If the expression is allowable to me, I should say—God preserve working men from the "Saviours of Society."

    "Property has its duties as well as its rights."  If property is honestly come by, are we under the necessity or duty of parting with it?  When something is required to be done for those who have no means of doing it for themselves, the richer people are now expected to assist in providing what is wanted.  What is this but a humanitarian confiscation of the property of those from whom such help is extracted?  What is this but industrial mendicancy on the part of those who receive it?  Why should workmen need to stoop to this?  Why should they not possess the means to provide themselves with what they need?  A municipal town of independence, desiring some improvement, does not be, it assesses itself for the expense.  In the same manner, the working class anywhere, needing an institution, or an advantage, should do as co-operators do—pass a levy upon themselves—not pass round the hat to their richer neighbours.  Has property intrinsic duties of ch