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CHAPTER XLV.

"THE CO-OPERATIVE NEWS"

THE Co-operative News commenced in 1871, and in 1872 it had attained a circulation of 15,000.  Its original capital was £479, subscribed by forty-five societies and a few individuals.  At a later stage the Newspaper Society was in debt £1,000.  By the end of 1904 its weekly circulation had reached 71,000.  It made a profit the first three months of £256.  Capital is now £15,000, held by 324 societies, who represent a membership of 1,087,000, but who collectively take only 71,000 copies.  Its Reserve Fund is £1,176.  In addition, the land, buildings and machinery, which cost £32,459, are now written down at £13,931.

    A journal representing the co-operative movement, the official organ of all the societies, is a public convenience.  One supreme referee for authority, counsel, information, and the free expression of the opinion of all members of the party, is a propagandist force.  The Co-operative News is now in its thirty-sixth volume, and is a well printed, illustrated class journal.  Being the organ of a selling movement, with more than a million customers, it ought to be included in the weekly purchases of every member.  As 30,000 new members join the society annually, taking a copy of the paper might be made a condition with them.  Any one joining a company which paid 10 per cent. on its shares would have to pay a premium.  The average gain to a store member is l0 per cent. on his purchases.  No premium is asked from him, and taking a penny paper (supplied at the stores)—worth more than a penny as papers go—would be readily assented to and the circulation of the News would amount to 100,000 in three months.

    It requires great knowledge of widely-scattered and diversified local interests to edit such a journal.  Mr. W. M. Bamford, as successfully as his father did before him, discharges the duties of Editor.

    When the Co-operative News first began, a notice was published stating that post-office orders were to be made payable to the secretary, Mr. William Nuttall, Alexandra Park, Oldham.

    A journal entitled the Co-operator, long conducted by Mr. Henry Pitman, which preceded the Co-operative News, gave reports, in Vol. I. ( 1860) of co-operative groups from sixteen places.  In Vol. X. (1870) it gave reports of societies and meetings in 138 places, showing substantial increase in co-operative activity.  There were doubtless other societies and meetings of which news never reached the Co-operator.  Some reports appeared in it from South Australia.  A society is mentioned in Adelaide having twenty-eight members.  In Cincinnatti, U.S.A., Co-operation is a subject of notice; from which the reader will learn the growing prevalence of societies in the constructive period.

    The literature of co-operation will one day have considerable representation in the Press.  The News management has lately added to its expository and popular publications the Millgate Monthly, an illustrated magazine which promises to find scope for that latent literary ability which must pervade so large a movement.  Its appearance has proved a conspicuous success.  No doubt practised and congenial pens will be found to contribute to its pages, both at home and abroad.

 
CHAPTER XLVI.

THE CO-OPERATIVE UNION

THIS Union is a Representative Executive of the societies, having departments of Administration, Defence, and Instruction.  It issued a Manual of Auditing and a Manual of Bookkeeping.  "Co-operative Book-keeping" is by Alfred Wood, A.C.A.  It has an introduction by W. R. Rae, Chairman of the Central Education Committee, who is himself a public teacher of repute.  Mr. Wood, who has genius for explaining things financial, begins with a clear definition of book-keeping, so that the reader understands from the very first the nature, scope, and uses of the financial art he is studying.  Co-operative Book-keeping is of a special nature which Mr. Wood entirely understands.

    A companion volume, entitled "A Manual of Auditing," has been compiled by Thomas Wood, R.J. Milburne, and H. R. Bailey; twice revised by the compilers in 1887 and 1899.  Auditors are as physicians called in to see whether a financial patient is in good health, or in a critical condition.  Ordinary unaudited book-keeping may present the familiar appearance of robust life.  All the while there may be seeds of consumption or symptoms of fatal disease in the patient, unknown or unnoticed by those most concerned.  A real intelligent audit reveals the secret malady if there be one, or certifies to the sound health of the society.  A good auditor has in his mind the policy a society ought to pursue, to keep in financial health.  I have been present when useful remarks offered by the auditor were frowned down, as being no part of his business to have an opinion outside his figures.  Societies will never have the full advantages of auditing until an auditor can give his free judgment of its financial affairs.  An auditor is responsible to the public as well as to the society whose affairs he investigates.  It is not enough when an auditor says, "I certify to the truth of the accounts put before me."  Has he seen all the accounts? and does he know what to ask for?  All the value of his audit lies there.

    Book-keeping is a moral art which every man in business, however small, ought to master.  The Bankruptcy Court is crowded by persons who have found their way there—not by dishonesty, but by ignorance of their own affairs.

    The seat of the Union is a handsome structure erected some years ago, known as Union Buildings, Long Millgate, Manchester.

    By the natural advantages of their position, having control of the funds of the movement, the Buying Society is able to control all the others.  It has three times evinced its power in being able to resist the authority of Congress, which passed resolutions requesting it to put its workshops in a line with acknowledged co-operative principle.  It has also been a wonder to foreign co-operators by what process of administration one society has come to control the other thousand, as it manifestly does.  In the archives of the Musée Social is the first explanation given of this singular circumstance, for which the present writer received their large silver medal.  The only English elucidation of the facts are to be found in an article in the Fortnightly Review, entitled "Higher Co-operation—Its Inner History," January 1902.

    The Honour of Societies.—The United Board is responsible for the morality or consistency of the societies, so far as it may be in their power to cause information to be given to the members of such duty as the profession of co-operative principles implies.  The belief that co-operative societies neither give nor accept credit has been a passport to the good opinion of the public.  No committee would have destroyed this prestige, had they, on appointment, been required to declare their intention to prevent indebtedness among their members.  Committees who allow it consider that giving credit is a mere convenience of trade, and do not know it is much more than that.

    Not only is no inquiry made as to the co-operative knowledge of new members—no question is put as to the co-operative information possessed by members who are invested with the distinction and authority of committeemen, who are entrusted not only with the administration but the character of the society.  The committees are the magistrates of the stores.  Had they co-operative knowledge and conviction, participation—which is the strength and charm of Co-operation—would not be confined to those who are consumers and refused to these who are workers.  Credit would not creep into the store, nor would co-operative education—upon which so much depends be left to chance and charity, as is done in so many stores.  No Congress paper is read upon the duties and qualifications of committeemen which, when officially sanctioned, could be put into the hands of store magistrates.

    I take one instance, that of debt which has attained great dimensions, and committees have been accessories to it.  Their guilt must be owing to lack of knowledge of their responsibilities, or from unfitness to have charge of the interests entrusted to them.

    With the poorer classes the habit of indebtedness is ruin, loss of character, and of household control.  The store permitting credit sinks to the level of the private trader, to whom we claim to be superior.

    Credit is a crime in the eyes of Co-operation, and County Courts in every town protest against indebtedness.  The store committee is, in a measure, responsible for the morals or members.  To deliver the poor from the slavery of indebtedness was the earliest improvement Co-operation professed to bring about.  A man in debt is owned by somebody else from whom he obtains food or clothing on credit.  Stores profess neither to give credit nor accept it.  The store that does is false to Co-operation.  Such is not the worst.  Honest-minded new members join the store to get free and keep free of debt.  But they find the store keeps debt-books like other shopkeepers, then the new members fall back into the degradation of credit, and are demoralised by us.  Mr. J. C. Gray, as a general secretary should, has with decision and foresight called attention to this subject.  The Birmingham Society, into which the cankerworm of debt was eating its way, has taken the wise resolution of stamping it out.  With wisdom which other societies might imitate this society has reminded its members that it is within their power to draw upon their profits in the hands of the store for as much as will cover one week's purchases, by which they would free themselves from the necessity of any further debt.

    Wisely did Dr. Johnson say, "All to whom want is terrible, upon whatever principle, ought to attain the salutary art of contracting expenses—for without economy none can be rich, and with it few can be poor."

    The Soul of the Store.—From the first it was a point or great importance that the store should have a library of such books as its members should wish or require to read.  All libraries were then under the control of the squire or the parson, who excluded all books they did not wish to be read.  A store library was, therefore, a sign of intellectual independence.  Of late years a society here and there has given or proposed to give its books to some public library.  This might be a gain to the receivers, but a loss to the givers, and progressive books among them would soon cease to appear, and never be replaced.  Then those who wish to read them must be supplicants, where they could formerly command.  It seems, therefore, the duty of official leaders of societies to discourage the relinquishment or sale of libraries in the interest of members themselves.

    "To add a library to a house is to give that house a soul."  A good relevant library is not less the soul of a store, which without knowledge, is dead.  It may be some expense to keep a library, and he who will not pay the rent of the place in which his soul may lodge, probably has a soul not worth lodging.  If he has he will soon find himself out of doors, exposed to all the storms of ignorance.  "Zeal" itself, "without relevant knowledge, is as fire without light."  A library is a bank of thought, where members may draw ideas out who never had any to put in.

    Co-operative Education.—The Union is the guardian and promoter of the education of the members of the movement.  All wise stores authorise in their laws the provision of an education fund.  Many excellent ideas never travel because there are no means to pay their fare.  From the beginning it has always been the rule that capital and intelligence are two trade charges, the inevitable conditions of its business progress.  Every year the Union publishes an Educational Programme, increasing in comprehensiveness and importance.  No other industrial movement ever had anything equal to it.  Sugden said of Brougham, when he first became Lord Chancellor, that "if he knew a little of law he would know a little of everything."  So it might be said that if this programme included co-operative education, nothing would be wanting.

    Education is not co-operative because it is given by co-operators.  The compilers of the programme do not appear conscious that there is a distinctive co-operative education, quite apart from that given by School Boards or University Extension classes.  The early co-operative propaganda was engaged in giving the education of Companionship, which is unknown now.  The art of association, which has no collected literature and no professors, is the very soul of the co-operative movement.  Without the spirit of unity and active goodwill to others, Co-operation sinks into mere commercialism.  Why should the friendly spirit exist?  Co-operators should promote the good of others—but why should they do it?  What are the motives for it, which are common to all persons irrespective of creeds, and which never fail when creeds vary or fade?  What demeanour should officials maintain so as not to alienate members?  Mere intellectual education is no surety for probity.  The artistic accomplishments of Oscar Wilde did not make him a desirable companion.  Energy, alertness, and business sagacity are often found in a rascal.  Knowledge where the red sandstone strata lie, or when the next comet will appear, affords no clue to the conditions of probity, nor inspires any preference for ethical qualities.

 
CHAPTER XLVII.

WHAT ARE CONGRESS QUESTIONS?

CONGRESSES have been thrown into confusion through the Chairman, or Standing Orders Committee, or the chief officials of the society, not being prepared to state what propositions brought forward were or were not out of order.

    The question arises—What are the principles of Co-operation, and what are its obligation and policy?  Co-operation professes primarily to enable working people, by means of self-help, in voluntary concert with others, to acquire business knowledge and improve their material condition.

    Amid the various societies extant for promoting religious or political objects, Co-operation proposes to establish an organisation of workers who—asking nothing from the State save equality of opportunity—shall, by themselves and of themselves, by labour and commerce, better the fortunes of industry, always observing the rule of equity—ever seeking their own interests by means compatible with the interests of others.

    Even this brief statement of co-operative principle and policy would enable any one to decide that any project or system which trusted to the State to accomplish it, could not officially be brought forward for Congress discussion.  Such a proposal is socialistic, and Co-operators are not Socialists.  Before the Congress could acquiesce in Socialist methods, the Congress would cease to be co-operative, since it would abandon its principle of self-help, and Co-operation could no longer appeal to the poorer class anywhere to improve their circumstances by self-effort, to which all the fortunes and successes of Co-operation are owing.  Socialism dissolves Co-operation.  Had the early co-operators looked to the State for aid, there would not be to-day a single store doing business, and the millions of property possessed by co-operators would have no existence.  Socialists have no more right to enter our Congress, and seek to pervert it to their own purposes, than co-operators would have to go into a Socialist or Collectivist assembly and propose to them to abandon their principles and methods and adopt ours.  No person proposing the introduction of Socialist principles, or conniving at their introduction into our movement, can be a co-operator.  If he professes to be one, he is betraying the cause he has undertaken to espouse.  Socialism may be better than Co-operation, but it is not the same, and those who think it better should go over to it, and not pretend to be on the side of Co-operation when they are deserting it.  Officers or Congress, finding compromising questions brought before them—questions not only distinct from Co-operation, but destructive of it—can have no hesitation in declaring them out of order.

    The co-operative party being a distinctive body—neutral, but not antagonistic to any other, religious or political, but separate from them—it has to pursue its chosen course or social effort.  It imposes no theological tenets on its members, nor exacts adhesion to any political platform.  To take sides with any one creed would involve conflict with every other, for conscience is the most fiery, invincible, and belligerent or all human attributes.  It is that instinct which fights for truth and personal sincerity, and—happily for progress—can never be bound by majorities.  To take one side in politics would be a challenge to the other.  To pledge the societies to one party would be as imprudent as to impose upon them one creed.  It would embark Co-operation on a shoreless sea, without compass or chart, where rocks are known to abound.  Motions which would cast the movement adrift from its moorings are surely out of order.

    It is a great thing that a distinctive body of industrial co-operators—having recognition, influence, and wealth—should have grown up within the memory of living men.  No wonder that another party, having no principle of self-effort and little to show in the way of success, should be desirous that the co-operative movement should take up theirs and run it for them.  If we are do to this by one body, we should have to do it by many more, and in a few years we should have all the chief movements in the world on our hands, and we should soon be like the poor gentleman in one of Ben Jonson's plays, who had "such tides of business that he had no time to be himself."  The co-operative movement is not itself yet, and it will be time enough to become the handmaid of other movements when it has perfected its own.

    In a democratic movement like Co-operation, every new member has an equal voice in its fortunes with those who have grown grey in its service and have acquired the wisdom of arduous experience.  The new-comers may, as they often have done, arrest education, connive at indebtedness among the members, and imperil the honour and progress of the movement in many ways.  Is no precaution to be taken against this?  The doors of the movement are wide open and unguarded.  Every one may enter who merely wants a dividend—knowing little and caring less for the higher ethical principles which have brought the movement its best friends and given it influence beyond any other industrial organisation.  It is officially known that 30,000 new adherents every year pass through the portals of the movement, which is only like an arithmetical turnstile, counting the numbers, but having no check upon the quality of the throng.  Thus the movement is dominated by recruits with competition in their bones, who give a competitive complexion to Co-operation.

    The question of the status of the Co-operative Bank was one of great interest to Mr. Hughes, Mr. Ludlow, and Mr. Neale, who wrote pamphlets upon it.  They wished its administration to be guided by what are known as "banking principles."  What does a great body of new stores, which have arisen since those days, know of banking principles?  Here is a topic of momentous interest for discussion.

    What are the limits of commercialism?

and men despair lest truth and equity be obscured by it.  Here is another topic for a Congress paper, the discussion of which would elevate all who took part in it.

    Lord Salisbury once asked, "Where does Municipalism end, and where does the State begin?"  It is no less an important question in a social movement.

    Co-operation has two principles, individualism and association.  What are their limits?  How far can we carry them?  These and twenty other questions are undebated, unsettled, and knowledge of them are not yet attributes of the movement.  It will be time enough to invite our members to enter upon other fields of enterprise when they are masters of their own.

 
CHAPTER XLVIII.

PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION

DIRECT representation of Co-operation in Parliament is a question of natural interest to co-operators.  Co-operation has had great representatives in the House of Commons—as Mr. John Stuart Mill, Mr. Walter Morrison, and Thomas Hughes.  The two last members lost their seats through their known friendliness to Co-operation.  A former Lord Derby, Mr. Bright, and Mr. Cobden, were steadfast in their friendship to it.  Mr. Thomas Burt and Mr. F. Maddison have been foremost among trade unionists in espousing the cause.

    As there is no interrogation of our new members as to what they know of Co-operation—as in the old days of the movement—a candidate may offer himself who may, when elected, represent something else than what co-operators expected.  A Socialist candidate, of whom several have found their way to the platforms of the societies, would be likely to do this.  A parliamentary representative should have political opinions of some kind, or the interest of the State would fare very badly in his hands.  A candidate cannot be taken at random, and no questions asked.  What is he to represent?  Is it the commercial interests of the movement mainly, or its ethical principles?  Co-operation stands for commercialism and morality.  A member of Parliament should be a patriot, who cares for the interest of the State first and the pecuniary interests of his party second.  If he has no political principles he has no business to be in Parliament at all.  There are already too many there who have no public principle whatever.  Shelley has described one of them—

    Is the co-operative candidate to be one of these impartial knaves whom Cobden knew so well, who had no bias, not even towards the truth?  Co-operators could not be expected to vote for such a candidate.  Suppose he is a Tory.  If so, he has as much right to be a candidate as a Liberal; but how can those co-operators who are Liberal vote for one who does not hold their principles, but will disparage and vote against them?  For Liberal co-operators to vote for a Tory candidate because it would serve their trade interests, would be to desert their Liberal principles for their personal advantage.  It would be that kind of baseness of which there is too much seen at every election.

    Suppose our co-operative candidate to be a Liberal, the Tory members could not conscientiously vote for him without being guilty of that treachery to their convictions which it does not become co-operators to advise or encourage.  There can be no direct representation except by a Liberal candidate where the Liberal co-operators in the constituency are sufficiently numerous to elect him—or where a Tory candidate being put forward, the Tory co-operators in the borough or district are in strength enough to elect him.  These, alone, are the circumstances under which we can have direct representation.  There is a dubious political party among working men who invite working men to vote for a candidate whether Liberal or Tory, if he will vote for their interest.  But co-operators have not sunk to that level of indifference to principle, or treachery to the State.

    Some co-operators are under the false impression, that because politics cannot be made a Congress question, that, therefore, co-operators should be indifferent to politics.

    In the days when the Rochdale store began, two public questions were occupying the nation, the Repeal of the Corn Laws and Free Trade.  Many leading co-operators were persuaded—as the Socialists are now—that their great scheme would render any other reform unnecessary.  They said the repeal of competition was more important than the repeal of the Corn Laws.  Like the Chartists, who said that the Free Trade agitation was delaying the Charter, the co-operators thought the Charter delayed communism.  Mr. G. A. Fleming, the editor of the New Moral World, took this course.  Mr. Lloyd Jones moved resolutions on the same side.  This caused among the public a distrust of Co-operation as a sinister movement, the members of which were personally against Fiscal and political reform, or were conniving with opponents of them.  A co-operator is for neutrality within the society, as regards religion and politics, but individually he should never cease to take sides in ecclesiastical and political affairs.

    Politics, like piety, is a personal question, and every one should take a personal interest in it.  That man makes a great mistake who thinks that because he is a social reformer in the co-operative body he should cease to be a political reformer as an individual.  As an individual he ought to belong to that Church whose creed commends itself to his conscience, and be a member of that political party whose principles, in his judgment, are most conducive to the honour and welfare of the State.  Because a man is a co-operator he does not cease to be a citizen or to be concerned in the freedom or prosperity of that great commonwealth, which is sometimes given the name of Empire.  To abandon great national interests to the unchecked control of intriguers or adventurers, and render no aid to the advocates of the people, is a dangerous and criminal disregard of public duty.  Tory and Liberal are more than mere party names.  Tory represents the authority of the rich, and the subjection of the people.  Liberal stands for reason and liberty.

 
CHAPTER XLIX.

OTHER INSTITUTIONS AND INCIDENTS

Industrial Exhibitions.—Prince Albert may be regarded as the originator in Europe of Industrial Exhibitions as a public feature.  The first experimental one was held in the Shakespeare Room, Birmingham, in 1839.  I had charge of the assistant exhibitors.  It was held at the Prince's instigation.  It was thirty years later (1869) when the first Co-operative Exhibition was made at the first revived Congress in London.  The Exhibition was small then, but by 1880 it became an indispensable feature of Congress.  Where no room sufficiently large could be had in the Congress town, temporary halls have been erected for the purpose.  Of late years the product of the Wholesale Society's workshops and those of the co-partnership manufactories have been exhibited in the same building—crowds attend, and the townspeople derive pleasure from it.  The object of the promoters of the Exhibitions is to bring before the public, examples of co-operative handicraft which may be trusted to be of fair value.  Lately articles of higher workmanship are included to suit the taste of more opulent purchasers.  The Exhibitions are intended to raise the standard of skill among workers.  Some Communist societies in America obtain on the market 30 per cent. more for their produce than other sellers.  Even the tremulous name of Shakers does not deter purchasers, because their goods are known to be honest.  Mr. E. O. Greening effected a brilliant extension of the Exhibition idea, by constituting annual Festivals of Labour, Flowers, and Song at the Crystal Palace.  A mile of tables have been covered with flowers and fruit—a sight the world has not seen elsewhere in the same splendour and extent.  Mr. Henry Vivian now continues them.

    At Hart Street, Bloomsbury, London, is the tailoring department of the Social Institute, originated by Mr. Greening in the former concert-room of the Princess's Theatre, Oxford Street, where I asked Mr. Greening to arrange a meeting, at which I introduced Mrs. Annie Besant, who addressed her first audience there.  It was but following the example of Mr. Owen, who gave Edward Irving the hospitality of Gray's Inn Road Hall, to preach in, when his religious friends were hostile to him.

    An International Profit-sharing Congress.—An International Congress Alliance has been established.  It originated in a proposal made by M. de Boyve, at the Plymouth Congress of 1886.  At the Rochdale Congress of 1892, Messrs. E. de Boyve, Charles Robert, E. V. Neale, E. O. Greening, T. Hughes, G. J. Holyoake, J. Greenwood, and other friends of profit-sharing, founded the Alliance.  At the first Congress of the body held in London, the integrity of the Congress was changed by the admission to it of parties having alien objects, which converted the Congress into a commercial union—a good object in its way, but not participation.  The Congress no longer—like the Musée Social of France—stood for participation.  Mr. Henry W. Wolff is the present chairman of the new Trading Alliance, who has had repeated travels through Europe, which have enabled him more than any one else to promote the commercial aims of the Alliance.  At the formation of the original Congress it was an object of Charles Robert and M. de Boyve to prevent the Association being perverted by the Socialists to their objects.  The only expedient for preventing this was expelling from membership such persons, who were to have the right to appeal when the cumbersome proceedings of a trial took place.  My proposal was, that each member, on admission, should sign a brief declaration of honour that, while he remained a member, he would neither promote, nor connive at, the perversion of the society from its cardinal objects, as such action would be held to terminate the membership of the individual.  The honour of the member would be an effectual safeguard of the integrity of the Congress of Participation.  Had this form of precaution been adopted, the submergement of profit-sharing by the London Congress would not have taken place.

    The last day of Congress saw an influx of voters from the North of England, with whom profit-sharing was not a principle.  They superseded the organisation they found, and set up a new Alliance of All-sorts, in which profit-sharing was reduced to a feature, and commercialism established in its place, so that the international representation of profit-sharing ceased.  A commercial alliance in the interest of societies had advantages, but those who wished to bring it about should have called a Congress for that purpose, and left the original Congress intact.  Had my suggestion to Charles Robert been adopted, this coup d'état of commercialism would not have occurred.  Ten years later (1905) the same thing was attempted at Paisley.  Had it succeeded it would have destroyed the Co-operative Union.  The ethics of honour between individuals is pretty well understood, but between societies—not so.

    An International Commercial Alliance.—This alliance, which commenced in the manner described, was a commercial necessity in the nature of things and will no doubt usefully extend Distributive Co-operation in other countries.  It has already held several Congresses consecutively, London, 1895 (if that is to be counted one of its Congresses); Paris, 1896; Delft, 1897; Paris, 1900 (a second time); Manchester, 1902; and Buda-Pesth, 1904.  This new alliance will have to hold Congresses in America, Canada, and Australia.  One of its objects is the "study of the true principles and best methods of profit-sharing and the association of labour with capital, including the remuneration of workmen."  Another object is "to hasten a system of profit-sharing" [improbable].  These objects authorise the introduction and advocacy of Co-partnership at the Congresses of the Commercial Alliance.  One day the original profit-sharing Congresses will be revived, as the participation of labour in profit, like "John Brown's soul, is marching on" in every nation.

    A Permanent Building Society.—A general Building Society is a feature of recent years. It was established in London in 1884.  Its prosperity and usefulness have grown during twenty one years.  Its roll of membership includes names of well known co-operative and trades unionist leaders.  The society is registered under the Building Societies' Act, and not under the Industrial Provident Societies' Acts.  It has a growing record of efficiency.  Its secretary is Mr. Arthur Webb, and its offices are at 22, Red Lion Square, London, W.C.  At first it seemed doubtful whether such a society could be established.  When Mr. A. Webb became its secretary in 1895 its receipts amounted to £7,000 per annum.  In 1905 they had reached £88,000.  Its assets are now £230,000.  The Society has 165 agents, mainly in co-operative societies.  It deals in mortgages only of moderate amounts for better security.  It holds 990 mortgages, distributed over thirty counties.  The average amount of each mortgage is only £233, which shows that its progress is safeguarded by prudence.  It has properties in Yorkshire, Cheshire, Warwick, Northumberland, Dorset, Durham, and Glamorgan.  It has 183 mortgages in Essex, 176 in Middlesex, 158 in Surrey, 132 in Kent, 118 in Hampshire, and 50 in Cambridge.

    The Insurance Society.—Equally, or more, entitled to notice is the Co-operative Insurance Society, whose offices are now Union Buildings, Long Millgate, Manchester, and whose secretary is Mr. James Odgers.  The origin of the society dates from 1867, and its first registered office was at the Equitable Pioneers Stores, Toad Lane, Rochdale.  It insures against fire, guarantees the honesty of employees in co-operative societies, insures the lives of members of co-operative societies, and also against death by accidents.  The first fire policy was issued February, 1868.  Its first fidelity guarantee was given in June, 1869.  Its first life policy was issued in August, 1886.  Its offices were removed from Rochdale to Manchester in 1871.  No life policies are issued—which is a feature of other companies—entitling the holder to profits, which enable many persons to save who otherwise would not.  Such policy-holders subscribe the profit in the higher rate they pay—but they save the money.  Though in accordance with co-operative practice to afford this facility, it has never been done in this office.

    The total premium income of this society for the first year (1869) and a half was £275.  In 1904, £46,007.  Funds in excess of paid-up capital in September, 1869, were £188.  At the end of 1904, £141,210.

    Incidents.—The fourth object of the Rochdale Pioneers—1844 was "the purchasing or renting an estate or estates of land, to be cultivated by the members who may be out of employment or whose labour may be badly remunerated."  This was the object of the "Unemployed Bill," 1905.  It took sixty years for the idea to travel from Rochdale to Westminster.

    If the reader would understand the virgin enthusiasm of co-operators, which has oft recurred, and in some later generations will recur again, as new dreamers of a better state of society arise, let him read the following lines sung by the Owen party on board ship en route to New Harmony, Indiana, 1825:

They did not find the land of the free out in the West, but they helped to make every land more free in social respects.

 
CHAPTER L

CO-PARTNERSHIP WITH LABOUR

"My idea is that the real characteristic of Co-operative Production might be stated in this way—that it was an endeavour to substitute an Industrial Republic for an Industrial Monarchy."—MR. GERALD BALFOUR, M.P., Crystal Palace, August, 1899.

The Agricultural and Horticultural Association.—Mr. Gerald Balfour's penetrating conception of Co-operative production covers the whole ground of Industrial Co-partnership.

    The society which was earliest to adopt Participation principles was the Agricultural and Horticultural Association.  This association, elsewhere mentioned, carried Co-operation into a field unoccupied by it before.  In 1877 the business reached about £80,000, and its profits about £3,000 per year.  The rules at that time limited the dividend on shares to 7½ per cent.  In practice, with a few exceptions it paid only 5 per cent.  Half the profits were paid to customers and 10 per cent. of the net profits went to the employees.  The clerks had dividend on a separate footing.  The total dividends paid to employees came to about 20 per cent.  The sums paid to customers repaid them several times over all the capital they had contributed to establish the Association.  In 1880 the business had obtained a turnover of over £100,000 of sales per year.  Then came the great agricultural depression which largely affected the Association.  Previously it had relied on its farming public.  Then it commenced to develop the Horticultural side of its business, which restored its prosperity and profitableness.  During the three years since 1901 the Association has made sales of £162,000, and net profits of £9,426.  By consent of members the profits have been retained with the object of strengthening the Association in case of recurring depression.  New regulations as to the division of profits, give to the employees 25 per cent. of all the net profits.  Customers still receive about 50 per cent., and the remainder goes to reserves or objects of public usefulness.  The capital now amounts to £50,000, and when in full work it employs 250 people.  The Association has over 3,000 members.  Its headquarters are at 92, Long Acre, London, W.C., in the historic building once known as St. Martin's Hall, in which Prof. Maurice launched the Working Men's College and Charles Dickens gave his first reading.  It is now the "One & All" seed warehouses and offices.  Its works are still at Deptford.  Mr. E. O. Greening, in his "Country in Town" (1905), says, "The Association is a mutual profit-sharing co-partnership, partly commercial, as far as it seeks to further the best interests of its customers and employees, but it is also a public body having educational aims and objects."

    Mr. Greening has been its Managing Director since its commencement.  The Association has published thirty-eight volumes of the Agricultural Economist, with illustrations equal to the best magazines.

    Labour Co-partnership Association.—For seventeen years the principle of profit-sharing with labour had been dead in the official workshops of the movement.  Capitalist workshops had been set up instead.  In 1884 it was considered necessary for the credit of Co-operation to found a new association of Industrial Co-partnership—in the interest and elevation of labour—the main object of the Rochdale Pioneers.  This was done at the Derby Congress of 1884.  M. de Boyve, of Nîmes, E. Vansittart Neale, E. O. Greening, Joseph Greenwood, Abraham Greenwood, J. M. Ludlow, Thomas Hughes, and G. J. Holyoake were the chief promoters of the new association.  Messrs. E. V. Neale, Lloyd Jones, E. O. Greening , Harold Cox, Bolton King, and E. W. Greening were the first executive.  A few years later three singularly ardent and able adherents appeared in the movement.  Henry Vivian, Thomas Blandford, and Aneurin Williams.  Labour co-partnership was then an unknown name, and it involved some research to discover the few societies existing which came under that description.  Mr. Henry Vivian, in his admirable paper on "Industrial Democracy," gives the following figures showing the progress made in the establishment of societies based on Co-partnership principles, dealing with working class businesses in England.
 

    We were told, with Russian confidence, that the Port Arthur of Capitalism would never be taken.  Anti-labour partisans told us we must go "outside the movement" to carry out our views.  We would not go outside—that would be schism.  This principle of Labour Co-partnership means that all those engaged shall share in the profit, capital, control, and responsibility.  It seeks (1) in the co-operative movement to aid all forms of Co-partnership production; (2) in other businesses to induce employers and employed to adopt profit-sharing; (3) to encourage investment tending in the same direction.

    Earl Grey presented a medal to some hundreds of Northern co-operators, whom he entertained at Howick, bearing the magic words:—

This is what the Federation of Co-partnership Societies aims at.

    Co-operative Distribution leaves the man-slave, or serf, or hireling to his lot.  It does nothing for him as a worker.  Co-partnership does everything.  The Christmas of 1903 had a Co-partnership celebration of which no precedent had ever been known in England.  Every employee of the South Metropolitan Gas Company received an illuminated card containing the message:—

"Capital, Co-partnership, Labour.  Christmas, 1903—The directors wish you and those dear to you a very happy Christmas.  The profit-sharing system, started in 1889, has advanced to Co-partnership in 1903.  It is the desire of the directors that every employee should be a co-partner with them in the property, and a co-worker in promoting the prosperity of our Company.  There are now 4,380 co-partners holding £114,865 of stock, of a market value of £136,115, who have also on deposit at interest £46,500, a grand total in the Company amounting to £182,615."

    Co-partnership pays the public as well as the men.  The South Metropolitan Gas Company announced a reduction of 2d, per 1,000 feet in its gas charges.  This means that the people of South London are being supplied at 2s. 1d., while the people of North London, served by the Gas Light and Coke Company without Co-partnership, are compelled to pay 3s.

    When philosophy can no longer deny facts, it explains them away by definitions, diving into bottomless pits of profundity, representing that if those engaged in labour were fully paid, there would be no profit.  That is to say that if the worker was paid at first all due to him, he would have nothing further to claim.  Thus the reader is landed on what the Irish preacher called a shoreless sea.  It is because no state has existed in which the worker has had his due, that he seeks it in an allotment of profit—his only mode of obtaining it.,

    Then another class of adversaries aver that the concession or profits is no incentive to labour. If wages augmented by profit-sharing means no increase of work, or thought, or care, or economy on the part of the worker, all who seek situations where higher salaries are paid are impostors. Higher wages are only offered as an inducement to higher service. But it this is not intended, it is fraudulent in those who seek or accept them.

    It marks the advance in public opinion that the splendid verbiage of Carlyle in praise of labour sounds very hollow—where it is unaccompanied by any exhortation of duty on the part of the employer in seeing to the adequate remuneration of labour.

    Some one praising Whistler's pictures as so very natural, the artistic egotist answered, "Yes!  Nature is creeping up to me."  Without egotism it may be said that industry is creeping towards Co-partnership.

    The munificence of Count de Chambrun endowed with an income of £4,000 a year the Musée Social of Paris.  This great Institute, situated at 5, Rue Las Cases, Paris, promotes in France the participation of the worker in the benefits of his industry.  One day the Co-partnership Federation of Great Britain may unite with the Musée Social and with societies of participation in other continental cities and in America, and restore the International Congress of Participation.  The English offices of the Labour Co-partnership Association are at 22, Red Lion Square, London, where No. 36 was the first seat of co-operative propagandism in 1836.  Labour Co-partnership (of which eleven volumes have appeared) is the organ of the movement.

    In the town of Leicester there are ten Co-partnership businesses, and in Kettering there are five.  The reader will find these Co-partnership productive industries include cotton, linen, silk, wool, boots and shoes, leather, metal, hardware, wood-work, corn-milling, baking, building and quarrying, printing, and book-binding.

    In a masterly statement of the status of Co-operation in Great Britain made by Mr. J. C. Gray in the Arena of 1905, it is shown that in the productive departments of the English and Scottish Wholesale 16,000 employees are engaged—that their sales amount to nearly £5,000,000, and their profits to more than £183,000.  Production carried on by distributive societies employs 18,000 and the sales amount to £5,000,000, which shows, as Mr. Gray observes, that criticism often made "that Co-operation has been successful in distribution, but in production its efforts have not been commensurate," is not borne out by facts.  Had the English Wholesale remained as founded—a Buying Society simply—the workshops would have been as numerous as the stores.

 
CHAPTER LI.

CO-OPERATION SELF-DEFENSIVE INDIVIDUALISM

"England's greatest treasure and force is, not in her navy, nor in her wealth, but in that Individualism, which, no doubt, frequently exceeds its aim and turns angular and grotesque, but on the whole constitutes an asset, a force greater than that of any other Empire."—DR. EMIL REICH.

CO-OPERATION is self-defensive Individualism, made attractive by amity, strengthened by interest, and rendered effective by association.  It has from the first appealed to self-help and inculcated self-dependence.  Competition, although an unevadable law of Nature, is mitigated by man with the condition that the freedom of the individual shall be kept within limits of neither fettering nor harming others in the exercise of equal rights.

    In the same manner it is a necessary condition of human progress that every form of association, co-operative or socialistic, voluntary or otherwise, shall refrain from neutralising, suppressing, or superseding those personal and individual rights upon which the welfare, the security, and self-defence of society depend.

    The individual can do little save by concert with others.  This co-operation he seeks by volunteering Co-partnership in the gains of all mutual undertakings.

    Co-operation has a message to Labour.  That is the reason of its being.  Ah, Labour! there are people who have a heart so cold towards thee that an Arctic explorer would be frozen to death in his attempts to reach the Polar region of their sensibility.  Labour! praised and plundered, the sole means of life, to which all progress is owing, by which everybody profits, and which few reward!  Co-operation is thy sole available path of independence.  It puts here and now into the workers' hands the means to cancel their captivity.  It waits for no future—its field of operation is the present.  It needs no conversion of the world for the commencement of change—it needs but self-help and concert.

    Co-operation is Co-partnership in the workshop and in the store.  Co-partnership in production is now officially conceded a place side by side with co-operative distribution, [295] of which it is not the antagonist nor the rival, but the assertion of the original co-operative principle.

    The essence of ethical Co-operation is participation.  It is that which has caused the co-operative stores to exist, and were participation withdrawn they would die in a day.  Unless the principle of the store is extended to the workshop, the workshop is not co-operative in the plain sense of the term.  If "taxation without representation is tyranny," co-operation without participation is imposture, judged in the light of its essential principle.

    Co-partnership in the workshop began earlier, goes further, and means more than co-operative distribution.  The theory of Co-operation, based on the Co-partnership of individuals, will be new to members of later years unversed in the aims of the old Pioneers who made the movement.  It therefore requires consideration to state the case, so as not to chill the susceptibilities of those who have never breathed the bracing upland air of higher Co-operation.

    Sir Albert Rollit lately told us of a mayor who, on taking his seat on the bench for the first time, assured the bar that "during his year of office he would spare no effort to be neither partial nor impartial."  My ambition is to be impartial, merely indicating the logical course a society must pursue which seeks to realise co-operative principles.

    When the stores established a buying society participation was the soul of it, and for a few years this society accorded a share of profits to those in its employ.  Then this rule was abandoned, and Co-operation was changed into a commercial movement.  A democratic society which asks no ethical questions of, nor takes any pledges from, those who join it, keeps an open door through which pirates may enter and scuttle the ship, and officials were soon found doing it.  Some never comprehended ethical Co-operation, but took it to be a new method of commercialism.  Some were particularists, as were workers in Oldham mills who shared the profits of the concern.  Some of them became shareholders in another profit-sharing mill.  They showed willingness to receive it in the mill in which they worked, but always discovered "particular" reasons why it was impossible where they were the employers.  That participation increased excellence in work, economy in material, diminished cost in supervision, and created pride in the workshop, which is the grace of labour—was disbelieved or disregarded.  Every consideration gave way before the desire of gaining an immediate advantage at the expense of others.  When workmen became directors, it was soon found they had no wish to see workmen of the class to which they belonged, on an equality with themselves.  In the stores they did not attempt to take away the profit of the purchasers, to whom a hundred shops were open; whereas the workman had scant chance of another situation if he gave up the one he held.  So the workman could be kept lean while the consumer was fed fat.  Co-partnership was the beginning of equality which has no other sign, and only men of strong sense of right and strong sympathy with it cared to concede it.  From 1864 to 1904, a period of forty years, no single director has ever uttered a word in favour of participation of profits in their workshops.  The more astute saw that by retaining the profits of the workshop and sharing them with the stores it would conduce to business.  Whether it was conducive to co-operative honour or fidelity to co-operative principles did not appear to concern them; as Mr. Mitchell, Chairman of the Wholesale, told the Parliamentary Committee, "it was not good business" to give heed to such considerations.  That was capitalism, not Co-operation, which spoke then.  There is this to be said in palliation.  The private traders were militant adversaries, and it was a great temptation to prove our capacity to defy them on their own ground.

    The Co-operative Congress, by its constitution, is the Parliament of the societies, and theoretically makes laws for all and exacts conformity to them.  Three times this Congress has called upon the Buying Society to re-establish profit-sharing in its workshops, and this single society has defied Congress; and at the same time it calls upon the societies to be "loyal to it," while it is disloyal to them.  This is, as has been said, always a mystery to foreigners.  The mystery would not so much matter did not the participation of profits disappear with it.  The thing wanted is to have a right conception of Co-operation, which means individual effort in concert with others for the equitable advantage of all.

    There are several kinds of Co-operation.  There is Co-operation in the Church for ends many view—educationally, at least—with dismay.  There is Co-operation in Parliament to keep the people from their rightful share in Government.  There is Co-operation among war-contriving financiers, which made Mr. Ruskin say that "what he feared was—Co-operation among scoundrels."  But that form of Co-operation originated by the followers of Robert Owen is ethical, which begins in self-help, and acts in concert with others for the common advantage.  An individual is lost, save in the savage state, where he can kill those who have something he wants or who endeavour to take from him what he has possessed himself of.  The co-operator is an individual who seeks his own advantage under conditions consistent with equal advantage of others.  Co-operation is not intended to neutralise individual power, but to increase it by protecting it from competition to which, by acting against the interest of others, he would be exposed.  The inspiration of self-effort and self-dependence is the primal object of Co-operation.  Its principle is equality, its policy association.

    If Co-partnership workshops were numerous it is conceivable they would need a wholesale buying society for themselves; but its functions would be to buy, not manufacture, though stores may do it.  The benefits a purchasing society can confer on stores are great.  Still, certain disadvantages of its manufacturing are to be taken into account.  Where a buying society manufactures it prevents or discountenances stores setting up local workshops, whereby they could give employment to many of their members, which would develop local genius in manufactures.  By establishing model workshops stores would create a higher order of co-operators, and exercise a new industrial influence around them.  In every town there are trades which supply local wants.  One or more Co-partnership workshops among them would be an advantage to the members of the store and to the workmen of the town in which the store is situated.

    The desire of a co-operative buying society is to supply to members pure consumable commodities or perfect articles of use.  Therefore some have thought that by producing what their members require they can be sure of their quality.  At the same time there are all about other producing firms, honest and capable, whose goods can be trusted, and a buying society, having funds at command, can stipulate for the best articles on the best terms.  This is precisely what the Co-operative Wholesale was formed to do.  It was expected that it would encourage the formation of Co-partnership manufacturing societies for providing farm produce for the consumption of their stores.  Being the chief buyers, it could insist upon the honesty of edible articles and excellency in workmanship.  Equitable conditions of labour, such as Co-partnership workshops establish, could be stipulated for, which would increase the popularity of its business.

    If the Productive Federation had a central buying society which, from the hope or more gain, commenced the manufacture of what their members required of machines or materials, it would become a great competing power against their own societies.  Local genius would be paralysed, local experience would be lost, and local enterprise would be checked.  Besides, this central manufacturing association would, as a matter of business, prefer to supply no goods but its own, and would check all local undertakings, decrying and belittling them as unnecessary and futile.  Here collectivism would kill co-operation, and frustrate the useful aims of self-helping labour.  A buying society would give them unlimited choice in the markets of the world.  One great manufacturing society would control them all, and each society would be a sort of tied house.  The great manufacturing society would be more or less a trust, which is the abuse of the organisation of labour.

    In comparing federal workshops to "tied houses" under one manufacturing society, the meaning is not that they are like public-houses held by brewers, tied by an external power, but that they would be tied by their own cupidity.  If their buying society manufactures machines used in the workshops of the federation, each workshop, if it consents to share the gains of manufacturing, takes the machines, and shuts itself out from selecting amid the new contrivances which the ingenuity of the world is continually producing.  Another disadvantage of a buying society that also manufactures is, that it no sooner sees a local group of co-operators setting up in business and selling to federated societies than it itself may commence making the same article; or, when it cannot do that, it may appeal to the cupidity of the shareholders, who "for a mess of pottage" would sell their fellow-workers into hired servitude, extinguish co-partnership, and arrest their self-employing, self-helping education.

    The advantages of manufacturing may be greater than the disadvantages of restricted choice in the market and frustrated action in the workshop; but it is well to understand what the disadvantages are.

    Two things ought to be borne in mind.  One is, what naturally put the idea of wholesale manufacturing into the minds of those who began it.  It was the refusal of private wholesale dealers to sell goods to co-operative societies which compelled them in self-defence to provide the goods themselves.  Second, the difficulty of obtaining commodities unadulterated, which they were pledged to supply pure to the stores, obliged them to undertake their production as far as possible, that they might be able to answer for their purity and genuineness.  When the purchasing power of the buying society grows it acquires ascendancy in the markets, and can command pure edibles and sound articles of household use.  At this point Mr. Vansittart Neale, who had Co-partnership in his blood, drew up a scheme by which the workshops of the buying society—like the Godin workshops of Guise and the Nelson works at Leclaire, in America—could eventually pass into the possession and control of the workmen engaged in them.

    The tendency of a wholesale manufacturing society to overlap the boundaries of individual life, and become engrossive in its operations wherever a path of gain is discerned, is not a vice peculiar to such an association, but the natural tendency of every business concern, workshop, or store.  Every society having the power of expansion inevitably covets further expansion, unless some limit of principle or prudence restrains it.  When the Liberal Caucus was first established in Birmingham under Mr. Chamberlain, it having the power of dominating the town, did so until Conservatives were excluded from every office and were unable to hold a public meeting.  Yet the minority of Conservatives were entitled to representation.  Liberalism itself, without it, loses the advantage of counter-criticism.  The dominancy which gives no one else a chance has reached a point at which it ought to halt, or it will one day be put back by revolt.  Co-operation and Socialism alike need this policy of restraint.

    The individualism of Co-operation alone keeps it from aggression.  It alone prescribes the duty of promoting individual life, and securing to all groups of associated workers equal opportunities of attaining growth and character.

    I am not a congress, nor a committee, nor a director prescribing the views others should hold—or the views they ought to take.  I am merely a co-operative writer explaining ideas acquired in long conversance with the movement.  Any one may differ from me who sees reason for it.  My industrial creed is short, but complete:

    There might have been some defence in 1864 for depriving the workshops of that participation which made them co-operative, from the need of money to promote expansion.  Now the day of prosperity has come a return to the integrity or principle is possible and likely to occur.  In the Wheatsheaf for February, 1905, an inspired organ, seven balance-sheets are given of seven manufacturing departments of the Wholesale Society, in which are employed 6,700 persons, the profit made by them amounting to £78,500.  Taking these seven departments as a probable average of manufacturing profits, £78,500 are paid to the stores, which means about £12 taken from each of those who labour in the workshop and given to the consumer in the store.  If the consumers really understood this they would readily consent to £5 falling to the lot of those who labour, and be content with the remaining £7, to which they have no claim.  They contribute nothing more for the cause than the pleasant exertion of indolent digestion.  This limited remittance of the levy on labour would not hurt any member of a store, while it would give to labour a dignity of participation which no trade union has attempted to claim for it.

    Societies will naturally manufacture or farm, but the invariable condition should be participation of profit with all employed—men, women, and young people.

    The interest of the State, of progress, and of industry is the development of individuality and personality in men and women.  Without self-help and self-trust the life of the poor is reduced to monotonous helplessness, servitude, and charity.  Ethical co-operation seeks to prevent this by putting participation in the fruits of labour into the hands of all whose industry creates the wealth of the State and the profits of commerce.  Co-operation furnishes reasons for amity and unity—amity which pledges itself to action consistent with the welfare of others; unity within the limits of practical efficiency.  Branches should consist of such groups of adherents as are contiguous to the central society, whose life and management they can share and control, as is attempted in Leeds.  Distant societies should be as planets in an independent orbit, federated with, but not subjugated by, a larger body, having only a borrowed, not a self-conscious, self-directed life.

    Co-operation is not intended to submerge, but to increase, individual life by ensuring to every one participation in the emoluments and direction of his vocation.  If the object of a party is the personal improvement of the community, all gain is loss which involves the sacrifice of individuality, self-action, manliness, and high character, the qualities expressed by the term "individuality."

    Nationality is but the individuality of a race. "The sentiment," as Mr. George Wyndham told the students of the University of Glasgow, "is lofty, but it may harden into nationalism.  Yet it is not on that account to be lightly rejected.  Any nation—and therefore every nation within the State—needs character, if only to redeem it from a featureless cosmopolitanism."  It is only by active individuality that the life of stores and workshops can save the co-operative movement from that "featureless monotony" which makes even goodness tiresome in every age. Centralisation is the doctrine of despots, and paralyses all who are under it.

    Companies have their limits.  That point is where they become trusts and directors begin to frustrate other companies likely to serve the public as well or better than themselves; or when, by buying up all concerns standing in their way, they compel the public to buy from them at whatever rate they think it prudent to levy.  They thus acquire the power of fraud in the name of "business," just as military marauders descend upon a country and plunder it in the name of war or Imperialism.

    When stores were first commenced they became small centres of social life, in which were held conversaziones of purchasers.  Each store had a news-room, which served for a little library, and a debating-chamber in which store questions and public affairs were discussed.  The mission of Co-operation—if such an over-worn word as "mission" may be used—is to advance enterprise and secure to industry its just reward.  The true aim, therefore, of social pioneers was to make Co-operation the agent of society—not to attempt to make it the master manufacturer and merchant of the world.  The store was an institution to which members were attracted by interest, and kept together by opportunities of personal improvement.  Wherever a branch grows large enough it should be, as has been said, encouraged to become an independent store.  Federation, not organisation, is the watchword of progress.  The organisation of ideas in a community is the death of general intelligence, and the organisation of labour, carried to excess, takes charm, emulation, and hope out of industry.  Civilisation is a protection against the competition of the savage; Co-operation is protection against the competition of civilisation.  Co-operation may mitigate reckless competition, but does not destroy competition itself.  Competition opens, and keeps open, the pathway of progress.  The alternative of competition is monopoly, and monopoly means the opportunity of the unscrupulous and the plunder of the many.

    It is no uncommon thing to find participation decried as a loss of money.  Let us grant that it is, and that economy is everything.  Why should we give dividends in the store?  That is as much a loss of money as dividends given in work shops.  The consumer spends only his money; the worker spends his life.  The rank and file of store purchasers do nothing but buy.  All in the workshop labour.  What exclusive claim has the eater over the worker?  If unlimited economic law is to prevail, collectivism is the thing.  Why should we not have one State journal, and save the ten thousand editorships and their staffs which the public now pay for?  Why should not a single physician prescribe for everybody, and save the cost of thousands of the faculty?  Why should a hundred advertisers tell us every morning that each has a remedy that will cure everybody, and send you hundreds of lithographed "testimonials" of their truth?  Why should not the issue of books be stopped in the name of economy?  There are already more books than anybody reads, and more wisdom in the world than anybody practises.  There are long-established formulas for arresting this profligate evil.  If new books agree with those already extant, they are needless; if additional, they are unnecessary, as the market of wisdom is already overstocked.  Parliamentary Government is a great expense.  There are numerous political save-alls, who tell us, like Carlyle, that the "national palaver" is all waste, and that a Committee of Superior Persons, always to be picked up at the clubs, would manage things much better.  Economy, conscientiously carried out, goes a long way.  One economic Church would save all souls, and save the public loss of time in thinking, and save the expenses of State Churches and Nonconformity.  The vast regions of food and dress admit of enormous reduction of expenditure.  The collectivist of economic science would render life not worth living in a month, which would indeed save everything.

    Pope said "the worst of madmen was a saint run mad"; but economic philosophers run more mad, unless good sense takes care of their principles.  In Co-operation under economic ascendancy libraries would disappear, education would be abolished as uneconomic expenditure.  Economic science unlimited would produce profligacy in misery.  Men and women would dress in drab, idols would be the only sculpture, no picture would be painted, song would be silent, no one would go abroad, and Society would consist of economic fools.

    Everything has its limit.  Sane economy signifies the carefulness of means in the production of a desirable result.  Economy is a method of increasing the means of happiness; when made an end it is waste.  The equitable sharing of profits increases them.  That is its business defence.

    Those who would judge fairly the co-operative movement as we know it, must not forget that the first thing its promoters had to do was to make it commercially successful.  Its principles might be lofty, with a dash of the millennium in them; but would they pay?  That was the question every body asked.  The second generation of co-operators, therefore, mainly set themselves to prove that men might live by co-operative principles.  They had to enter the fields of commerce and manufacture.  If Co-operation appears somewhat to have lost itself in commercialism, forgetful that its object and recommendation was that of moralising trade, let it be remembered how it became oblivious of its nobler promise.  Co-partnership is now the feature and the faith of the movement.  So, taken as a whole, Co-operation is realising its industrial and ethical ideal.  It may be imperfect and somewhere inconsistent; but what system is not?  Even Christianity, with all the cherubim hovering over it, cannot be kept straight.  Co-operation is merely human.  Yet it has done great things, and will do more.  It revealed, what Lassalle denied, the possibility of self-help to the people, as it had never been revealed before.  It proved what few professed and fewer believed—that honesty in trade and commerce paid.  It showed that men needed little from the State save equality of opportunity, and it is now endowing Labour with the right of property.  It may be that Co-operation has made more promises than any other movement; but it has fulfilled more promises than any other ever made.

    I may wish to see Co-operation go farther and better realise its higher aims; but, nevertheless, I value it for what it has done and is doing, and would withstand any who decry or belittle it.  If it goes no further, I shall stand by it; if it advances, I shall go with it.

    Who is not sick of Carlyle's hollow praise of Labour echoed by the newspapers?  "Blessed is he who has found his work.  Let him ask no other blessedness."  Not even the blessedness of being paid for it.  No trade union nor collectivist society has proposed any resolution like the one brought forward by Mr. Walter Morrison, and passed unanimously by the Co-operative Congress of 1873, namely, "That it is of the essence of Co-operation to recognise the right of labour to a substantial share in the profits it creates."

    A lava storm of hot denial burst upon us from the Vesuvius of Capitalism for saying this. The economic philosophers proved there was no such thing as profit.  Other people know differently. "The merchant calls his surplus profit; the clergyman calls it stipend; the lawyer calls it fees; the banker calls it interest; the shareholder calls it dividend; the landlord calls it rent; the statesman calls it salary; royalty calls it grants."

    Co-operation teaches the worker how to retain honest profit in his own hands at the present time, not in an unknown future.  If he does not it may never be restored to him.  What chance is there that Socialism, with all its noble aims, will be able to arrest the giant tendency of every party—capitalist and workman alike—of grasping at all that lies in their way, suffer who may?  What can avert it, unless a nobler individuality can be cultivated?  Where can be found a better class of workmen than the directors of the Co-operative Wholesale Society, yet they have taken from the workshops all the profits of labour?  No society can be more democratic than the stores which appoint them.  There is no remedy except by creating in the conscience of individual voters a sense of honour which shrinks from predatory profit.  That was a great day in England when Granville Sharp obtained the decision that when the foot of a slave trod on English ground he was free.  That is what Co-partnership Co-operation accomplishes for industry in the noble workshops it has established and which exists in some of the manufacturing stores.  On their sacred ground the subjugation of the hired workman ceases, and the badge of his servitude falls from his neck, and he becomes a co-partner.  How can this be done save by a proud individuality which puts principle first and profit second—which spurns, for its own gain, to limit the equal opportunities of workers?  No committee discovers new truth, or sees a new path of progress, or has intrepidity to advance upon it.  It is the individual conscience that prompts the onwardness of the world and exalts the character of mankind.  Therefore Co-operation is self-defensive Individualism, and seeks the alliance of all brave men and true men to stand up with it for amity and independence—for manliness and fairness.  Conscience is the soul of progress, and conscience dwells in the individual.

    The quality of the true co-operator may be seen in the noble words in which Mr. Gladstone described Dr. Dollinger.  "He had," said Mr. Gladstone, "more than any man I have known, a historic spirit.  His mind turned on the pole of truth and fact.  He regarded error as falsehood.  He told the truth when he knew it by instinct, regardless of all considerations to the contrary."

    The aim of this History is to indicate the policy warranted by co-operative principle.

 
APPENDIX

    IF after this life is ended Death gave us an opportunity of writing an appendix to it, what omissions in the story of our life would be supplied, what acts of commission would be repaired!  An author is more fortunate who, on seeing his volume closed, finds some relevant parts of it have been omitted unavoidably—most convenient and disguising word which ought to be negligently—can supply them.

    Singular Abnegation of Employees.—When a trade union of employees was proposed years ago Mr. Thomas Hughes thought such a union a scandal, as implying that workers needed to defend their interests against Co-operative Committees.  He did not appear to see that a competitive policy, as respects labour, is strongly represented on most store committees.  There is now a society called the "Amalgamated Union of Co-operative Employees," who have held fourteen annual meetings, but have not the word participation in their "objects."  They are continually appealed to by committees to take interest in Co-operation.  But why should they when their employers take no co-operative interest in them?  As mere servants they take a servant's interest in the business.  The Union of bright smart servers do not appear to know that they are in the service of a body whose watchword is Participation, and that every one in that service is entitled to share in its benefits.  How can they be enthusiasts about a system, the principle or which they do not understand?  If they did they would publish in their papers a list of the noble "Sunrise" societies, who give Co-operation its splendid name by their honourable consistency.  This Union not only does not do this, but gives its influence against its own order, and prevents its position being improved.  Every year they go into co-operative halls, holding their meetings, saying to committees, "Look at us.  We have no share of profits.  We do not ask it.  For fourteen years we have kept silence upon it.  We have no ambition to be other than mere hired servers."  They could do better for their Union than this.  They have wit, moderation, and good sense.  Are they not aware that when the voices are counted in favour of progress, their silence is construed into acquiescence with the forces against it?

    The Women's Guild.—Another instance not less singular of obliviousness of the advantage of working for progress in the Co-operative movement is afforded in the Women's Co-operative Guild.  It was fortunate in having for its foundress in 1883 Mrs. Mary Lawrenson, who saw clearly that if the mistress of the household might, by dealing at the Store, save 10 per cent. of expenditure, how much more important it was that the head of the household, from whom the income is derived, should obtain 10 per cent. upon his labour, which would also be derived by every member of the family employed in a profit-sharing establishment.  Miss Greenwood, who in the earlier years of the Women's Guild was Vice-President, never kept silent upon this advantage, which appealed to the interest of the mistress of the house.  Those who promoted the formation of the Guild depended upon this sentiment for advancing participation among the assistants in the store and all who were engaged in its workshops.  Yet for years nothing has been heard of this question at their Congresses or Conferences.  I wrote to one responsible for the administration of the Women's Guild to explain this peculiarity and indifference, who replied that participation was regarded as a mere method of business.  It seems incredible that any lady of intelligence, as was the one to whom I wrote, could be unaware that participation was the essential principle of Co-operation.

    Thomas Blandford.—A singular figure entered the co-operative movement subsequent to the appearance of this history in 1878.  Blandford was a young Irishman with all the ardency of his race and of conspicuous self-devotion.  He wore himself out by his ceaseless exertions which left Co-operation a legacy of a great example.  He was the originator of the Congress Shilling Fund, which at Paisley exceeded £70, and leaves in each place some permanent memorial of the visit of the Congress.  His name is perpetuated among us by the institution of the travelling Blandford Scholarship.

    Distinguished Foreign Names.—Foremost among the eminent names in other lands distinguished in Co-operation now living is M. Edouard de Boyve, of Nîmes, who has for so many years conducted L'Emancipation of Paris.  He has been also an inspirer in England of international participation in the benefits of labour.  Next to him must be named Professor Charles Gide, distinguished for incessant and lucid advocacy of Co-operation.  Mr. Henry W. Wolff is a Continental promulgator whom it is difficult to locate.  Like Cobden he may be described as the international man of Co-operation.  As a linguist, a traveller, and a journalist he has devoted his varied attainments to making Co-operation international.

    It was Sig. Luzzatti, who, addressing Mr. Neale and myself at Bologna, said, "Co-operators were the explorers of humanity.  They had discovered upon its great map the kingdom of Co-operation, which they had conquered and now occupy."

    In America there is the Rev. Edward Everett Hale, D.D., the Prince of Co-operative writers, who first did for Co-operation in the United States what Harriet Martineau did for Political Economy in England—made it as readable as romance.  Nicholas Gilman is an influential authority upon the subject.  N. O. Nelson, who will always be counted American, although he is a Norwegian by nationality, will be remembered from his founding the profit-sharing city of Leclaire before-mentioned (P. 465).  Long Buckby, Northampton, has built a "Holyoake Terrace," containing eighteen six-roomed houses, seventeen of which are owned by the occupiers.  Ever since Wilkie Collins put "Holyoake Square" into "Basil," other towns have similar friendly memories.

    Courtesy of the King.—It remains to be mentioned that on the Coronation of His Majesty, the operatives of the Havelock foot gear manufacturing society sent the request, transmitted by me to Lord Knollys, to be permitted to present a specimen of their craftsmanship among the Coronation gifts of the day.  By courtesy of Lord Knollys, permission was given, and a handsome example of their workmanship was duly received at Marlborough House.  This was a Co-operative distinction peculiar to Labour Co-partnership.

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NOTES.

1.      Ebenezer Elliott wrote the best description in our language of what communism is not.  Elliott repeated it to me amid the charming hedgerows, where he wrote his song of "The Wonders of the Lane":—

2.      "Survey of Political Economy," chap. xv. p. 213.

3.      "The principle of the Metayer system is that the labourer, or peasant, makes his engagement directly with the landowner, and pays, not a fixed rent, either in money or in kind, but a certain proportion of the produce, or rather of what remains of the produce, after deducting what is considered necessary to keep up the stock.  The proportion is usually, as the name imports, one-half; but in several districts in Italy it is two-thirds." (Mill, "Political Economy," People's Edition, p, 183).

4.      Charles Morrison, "Labour and Capital," p. 111.

5.      "Principles of Population."

6.      A Scotch deputation to Downing Street, headed by a Lord Provost of Edinburgh, first caused me to notice this.  The chief speaker was Robert Chambers.  He had been kept some years out of his well-earned dignity, because he was suspected of writing the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" (it being unlawful to consider creation natural); yet I saw him fasten on a Prime Minister, who was overdue in Parliament, but could not extricate himself from that pertinacious visitor.

7.       The Combination Laws were repealed the year before the speech—1824.

8.      Essays, vol. iii. p. 154.

9.     Essays, vol. iii.

10.      It was a popular quotation long after, and is not untrue in 1905.  The Economist of 1821 considered that "it deserved to be written in diamonds."

11.      Mr. Owen's speech at the Holkham agricultural meeting, on his health being proposed by Mr. Coke.  Even landlords had their vicissitudes in those days.  Then Mr. Coke's land let at 15s. per acre; a fall in the value of produce might throw it out of cultivation, reducing it to 5s. per acre, involving a loss of £40,000 a year.  Even then the owner would probably not need to come upon the parish, while the weaver or mechanic would.

12.      Yet he could applaud those who added pianoforte wire to the cats with which they flogged working men and women of Jamaica.  Men in the negro condition, black and white, will one day have their turn of power, and Mr. Carlyle's ferocious approval will invigorate many a cat, and sharpen many a knife, for use on respectable backs and throats, unless working people learn that fairness alone brings security.

13.      Reports of the Condition of the industrial Classes in Foreign Countries.

14.      Like the Irish peasant whom Dr. King met, and asked whether he would rather live upon wheaten bread or potatoes, answered, "Sir, I like bread well enough once in a way, but potatoes are more natural" (Co-operative Magazine, 1826).

15.      Herder, "Phil. Hist.," vol. i. p. 372.

16.      Bishop Burnet says the tenderest part of the whole work is the representation he gives of Henry the Seventh's Court, in which his disguise is so thin that the matter would not have been much plainer if he had named him.

17.      "Fors Clavigera," Letter 7. 1871.

18.      Erskine's defence of Paine, before Lord Kenyon, 1793.  This was the occasion, according to Erskine, when Cromwell made the remark quoted.

19.      This design shows that the petroleuse business, which got connected with the honest and just aims of the communalist party in France, was no new madness.  Indeed, it would not be new in England.  An English Conservative lord some time ago had at his breakfast-table one whom I knew to have acted in a plot to blow up London in 1848.  It was a police-agent's project, but the person in question fell in with it, and it took some trouble to divert him from it.  The said lord did not know of this little affair.  The enterprising patriot left the country but kept up a correspondence with his noble friend.

20.      This was Grisel, in whom they had confided, and who had flattered, inflamed, and caressed them, as is the way of suspicious patriots.  The club of Babeuf assembled in the vaults of the Pantheon, and this Grisel was the most open-mouthed scoundrel there.

21.     "Social Destiny of Man."

22.     "Owen, like Plato, laid great stress on the value of singing, dancing, and drill, as means of education, much to the horror of his Quaker partners.  Like Plato, he considered ease, graceful bearing, self-possession, and politeness principal tests and objects of any system of education.  Where even now could you find such a school as the New Lanark, for rich or poor, setting up these qualities as among its main and principal objects?" (Lecture on "Foreshadowings of Co-operation in Plato," by Walter Morrison, M,P., Co-operative Institute, London, 1874.)

23.     This school failed.  Not satisfied with the moral training and instructive amusement, as at New Lanark, the managers sought prematurely to develop the intellectual powers.  The tender brain of the infant was overexcited; more harm than good was done; and the system fell, in a measure, into disrepute, until Fröbel, in his "Kindergartens," brought back things to a more rational way (R. D. Owen: Autobiography).

24.     Mr. Francis Place told me that he also was concerned in the revision of the Owen MS.

25.     Robert Dale Owen, Atlantic Monthly, June, 1873, pp. 735-6.

26.     These exist now.  In Mr. Owen's days they were unknown and unthought of.

27.     He paid the full price for all newspapers he bought, and the price was considerable then; and he posted copies, among others, to every clergyman in the kingdom.  Mr. Pare found that Mr. Owen's payments for papers amounted to £4,000 in three months.

28.     Economist, 1821.

29.     During a period of twenty years I well remember when the phrase "social science" was regarded as much an indication of "something being wrong" on the part of those who used it, as mentioning Sir C. Lyell's doctrine of the Antiquity of Man, or Darwin's Theory of Evolution, afterwards became.  We were all surprised when a National Association was formed for the promotion of "Social Science" in which prelates took part.

30.     This was as modestly put as could be expected by a prelate of that day.  The Bishop of London said, "Mr. Owen's system was brought forward by an individual who declared that he was not of one of the religions hitherto taught.  This alone was a sufficient reason for him to disregard it" (Hampden in the "Nineteenth Century," p. 47, 1834).

31.     The Social Economist, edited by the present writer and Mr. E. O. Greening.

32.     Economist, August 27, 1821.

33.     His son, Robert Dale, relates that he was with him during his examination by a committee of the House of Commons, when he gave evidence on the condition of the factory children, and heard Sir George Philips put questions to his father in an insolent tone as to his religious opinions.  Brougham, who was also on the committee, resented this irrelevant offensiveness, and moved that the cross-examination in question be expunged from the record, and it was done.  If, however, a gentleman's personal opinions could be attacked in a Parliamentary committee the reader can imagine what took place elsewhere .

34.    Vide Autobiography of Robert Dale Owen.

35.     Mr. David Dale, who was a shrewd, discerning man, once said to Mr. Owen, "Thou needest to be very right, Robert, for thou art very positive."

36.     The reader may see that Elliott, when he carne to write his epitaph on Cobbett, must have recurred to this address.  It was this:—

37.     Co-operative Miscellany, No. 2, 1830.

38.     In his account of the Shakers in the Economist of June 2, 1821, Mr. Mudie said, "They never meddle with public affairs—not even voting at an election," and described as "a few singularities" this base abandonment of the country to whomsoever might bestride it—to patriots who might care for it, or knaves who might despoil it of honour or freedom, while the unheeding Shakers took care of their petty conscience and comfort,

39.     British Co-operator, p, 154.

40.     Had this been true, his name would not have been hateful to this day.