I need not enter into similar particulars respecting the Corn-Mill Society, and will merely state that in 1860 its capital is set down, on the same authority, at 26,6187. 148. 6d., and the profit for that single year at 10,1647. 128. 5d. For the manufacturing establishment I have no certified information later than that of Mr. Holyoake, who states the capital of the concern, in 1857, to be 5500l. But a letter in the Rochdale Observer of May 26, 1860, editorially announced as by a person of good information, says that the capital had at that time reached 50,000l.: and the same letter gives highly satisfactory statements respecting other similar associations: the Rossendale Industrial Company, capital 40,000l.; the Walsden Co-operative Company, capital S000l.; the Bacup and Wardle Commercial Company, with a capital of 40,000l., “of which more than onethird is borrowed at 5 per cent, and this circumstance, during the last two years of unexampled commercial prosperity, has caused the rate of dividend to shareholders to rise to an almost fabulous height." It is not necessary to enter into any details respecting the subsequent history of English Co-operation; the less so, as it is now one of the recognised elements in the progressive movement of the age, and as such, has latterly been the subject of elaborate articles in most of our leading periodicals, the most recent, and one of the best of which, was in the Edinburgh Review the capital or assets of the society is 59,5361. 10s. 1d., or more than last quarter by 36871. 138. 7d. The cash received for sale of goods is 45,8067. Os. 104d., being an increase of 22831. 12s. 5td., as compared with the previous three months. The profit realized is 57131. 28. 74d., which after depreciating fixed stock account 1821. 28. 44d., paying interest on share capital 5987. 178. 6d., applying 24 per cent to an educational fund, viz. 1227. 17s. 9d., leaves a dividend to members on their purchases of 28. 4d. in the pound. Non-members have received 2617. 18s. 4d., at 1s. 8d. in the pound on their purchases, leaving 8d. in the pound profit to the society, which increases the reserve fund 104l. 158. 4d. This fund now stands at 13527. 78. 11 d. the accumulation of profits from the trade of the public with the store since September 1862, over! and above the 18. 8d. in the pound allowed to such purchasers." | for October 1864: and the progress of Co-operation from month to month is regularly chronicled in the "Co-operator." I must not, however, omit to mention the last great step in advance, in reference to the Co-operative Stores; the formation, in the North of England (and another is in course of formation in London) of a Wholesale Society, to dispense with the services of the wholesale merchant as well as of the retail dealer, and extend to the Societies the advantage which each society gives to its own members, by an agency for co-operative purchases of foreign as well as domestic commodities direct from the producers. It is hardly possible to take any but a hopeful view of the prospects of mankind, when in the two leading countries of the world, the obscure depths of society contain simple working men whose integrity, good sense, self-command, and honourable confidence in one another, have enabled them to carry these noble experiments to the triumphant issue which the facts recorded in the preceding pages attest. From the progressive advance of the co-operative movement, a great increase may be looked for even in the aggregate productiveness of industry. The sources of the increase are twofold. In the first place, the class of mere distributors, who are not producers but auxiliaries of production, and whose inordinate numbers, far more than the gains of capitalists, are the cause why so great a portion of the wealth produced does not reach the producers-will be reduced to more modest dimensions. Distributors differ from producers in this, that when producers increase, even though in any given department of industry they may be too numerous, they actually produce more: but the multiplication of distributors does not make more distribution to be done, more wealth to be distributed; it does but divide the same work among a greater number of persons, seldom even cheapening the process. By limiting the distributors to the number really required for making the commodities accessible to the con sumers-which is the direct effect of the co-operative system-a vast number of hands will be set free for production, and the capital which feeds and the gains which remunerate them will be applied to feed and remunerate producers. This great economy of the world's resources would be realized, even if co-operation stopped at associations for purchase and consumption, without extending to production. The other mode in which co-operation tends, still more efficaciously, to increase the productiveness of labour, consists in the vast stimulus given to productive energies, by placing the labourers, as a mass, in a relation to their work which would make it their principle and their interest—at present it is neither-to do the utmost instead of the least possible in exchange for their remuneration. It is scarcely possible to rate too highly this material benefit, which yet is as nothing compared with the moral revolution in society that would accompany it: the healing of the standing feud between capital and labour; the transformation of human life, from a conflict of classes struggling for opposite interests, to a friendly rivalry in the pursuit of a good common to all; the elevation of the dignity of labour, a new sense of security and independence in the labouring class, and the conversion of each human being's daily occupation into a school of the social sympathies and the practical intelli gence. Such is the noble ideal which the promoters of Co-operation should have before them. But to attain, in any degree, these objects, it is indispensable that all, and not some only, of those who do the work, should be identified in interest with the prosperity of the undertaking. Associations which, when they have been successful, renounce the essential principle of the system, and become joint-stock companies of a limited number of shareholders, who differ from those of other companies only in being working men; associations which employ hired labourers without any interest in the profits (and I grieve to say that the Manufacturing Society even of Rochdale has thus degenerated), are, no doubt, exercising a lawful right in honestly employing the existing system of society to improve their position as individuals: but it is not from them that anything needs be expected towards replacing that system by a better. Neither will such societies, in the long run, succeed in keeping their ground against individual competition. Individual management by the one person principally interested, has great advantages over every description of collective management: co-operation has but one thing to oppose to those advantages-the common interest of all the workers in the work. When individual capitalists, as they will certainly do, add this to their other points of advantage; when, even if only to increase their gains, they take up the practice which these co-operative societies have dropped, and connect the pecuniary interest of every person in their employment with the most efficient and most economical manage ment of the concern; they are likely to gain an easy victory over societies which retain the defects, while they cannot possess the full advantages, of the old system. Under the most favourable supposition it will be desirable, and perhaps for a considerable length of time, that individual capitalists associating their workpeople in the profits, should coexist with even those co-operative societies which are faithful to the cooperative principle. Unity of authority makes many things possible, which could not, or would not, be undertaken, subject to the chance of divided councils, or changes in the management. A private capitalist, exempt from the control of a body, if he is a person of capacity, is considerably more likely than almost any association to run judicious risks, and originate costly improvements. Co-operative societies may be depended on for adopting improvements after they have been tested by success: but individuals are more likely to commence things previously untried. Even in ordinary business, the competition of capable persons who in the event of failure are to have all the loss, and in case of success the greater part of the gain, will be very useful in keeping the managers of cooperative societies up to the due pitch of activity and vigilance. : When, however, co-operative societies shall have sufficiently multiplied, it is not probable that any but the least valuable workpeople will any longer consent to work all their lives for wages merely and both private capitalists and associations will gradually find it necessary to make the entire body of labourers participants in profits. Eventually, and in perhaps a less remote future than may be supposed, we may, through the co-operative principle, see our way to a change in society, which would combine the freedom and independence of the individual, with the moral, intellectual, and economical advantages of aggregate production; and which, without violence or spoliation, or even any sudden disturbance of existing habits and expectations, would realize, at least in the industrial department, the best aspirations of the democratic spirit, by putting an end to the division of society into the industrious and the idle, and effacing all social distinctions but those fairly earned by personal services and exertions. Associations like those which we have described, by the very process of their success, are a course of education in those moral and active qualities by which alone success can be either deserved or attained. As associations multiplied, they would tend more and more to absorb all workpeople, except those who have too little understanding, or too little virtue, to be capable of learning to act on any other system than that of narrow selfishness. As this change proceeded, owners of capital would gradually find it to their advantage, instead of maintaining the struggle of the old system with workpeople of only the worst description, to lend their capital to the associations; to do this at a diminishing rate of interest, and at last, perhaps, even to exchange their capital for terminable annuities. In this or some such mode, the existing accumulations of capital might honestly, and by a kind of spontaneous process, become in the end the joint property of all who participate in their productive employment: a transformation which, thus effected, (and assuming of course that both sexes participate equally in the rights and in the government of the association)* would be the nearest approach to social justice, and the most beneficial ordering of industrial affairs for the universal good, which it is possible at present to foresee. $ 7. I agree, then, with the Socialist writers in their conception of the form which industrial operations tend to assume in the advance of improvement; and I entirely share their opinion that the time is ripe for com mencing this transformation, and that it should by all just and effectual means be aided and encouraged. But while I agree and sympathize with Socialists in this practical portion of their aims, I utterly dissent from the most conspicuous and vehement part of their teaching, their declamations against competition. With moral conceptions in many respects far ahead of the existing arrangements of society, they have in general very confused and erroneous notions of its actual working; and one of their greatest errors, as I conceive, is to charge upon competition all the economical evils which at present exist. They forget that wherever competition is not, monopoly is; In this respect also the Rochdale Society has given an example of reason and justice, worthy of the good sense and good feeling manifested in their general proceedings. "renders incidental but valuable aid towards "The Rochdale Store," says Mr. Holyoake, realizing the civil independence of women, Women may be members of this Store, and vote in its proceedings. Single and married women join. Many married women become members because their husbands will not take the trouble, and others join in it in selfdefence, to prevent the husband from spending their money in drink. The husband cannot withdraw the savings at the Store standing in the wife's name, unless she signs the order. Of course, as the law still stands, the husband could by legal process get possession of the money. But a process takes time, and the husband gets sober and thinks better of it before the law can move." state of existence which they consider tolerable, and the danger to be apprehended is that they will thenceforth stagnate; will not exert themselves to improve, and by letting their faculties rust, will lose even the energy required to preserve them from deterioration. Competition may not be the best conceivable stimulus, but it is at present a necessary one, and no one can foresee the time when it will not be indispensable to progress. Even confining ourselves to the industrial department, in which, more than in any other, the majority may be supposed to be competent judges of improvements; it would be difficult to induce the general assembly of an association to submit to the trouble and inconvenience of altering their habits by adopting some new and promising invention, unless their knowledge of the existence of rival associations made them apprehend that what they would not consent to do, others would, and that they would be left behind in the race. and that monopoly, in all its forms, is the taxation of the industrious for the support of indolence, if not of plunder. They forget, too, that with the exception of competition among labourers, all other competition is for the benefit of the labourers, by cheapening the articles they consume; that competition even in the labour market is a source not of low but of high wages, wherever the competition for labour exceeds the competition of labour, as in America, in the colonies, and in the skilled trades; and never could be a cause of low wages, save by the overstocking of the labour market through the too great numbers of the labourers' families; while, if the supply of labourers is excessive, not even Socialism can prevent their remuneration from being low. Besides, if association were universal, there would be no competition between labourer and labourer; and that between association and association would be for the benefit of the consumers, that is, of the associations; of the industrious classes generally. Instead of looking upon competition as the baneful and anti-social principle I do not pretend that there are no which it is held to be by the generality inconveniences in competition, or that of Socialists, I conceive that, even in the moral objections urged against it the present state of society and inby Socialist writers, as a source of dustry, every restriction of it is an evil, jealousy and hostility among those I and every extension of it, even if for engaged in the same occupation, are the time injuriously affecting some altogether groundless. But if compe- class of labourers, is always an ultimate tition has its evils, it prevents greater good. To be protected against comevils. As M. Feugueray well says, petition is to be protected in idleness, "The deepest root of the evils and ini- in mental dulness; to be saved the quities which fill the industrial world, necessity of being as active and as inis not competition, but the subjection telligent as other people; and if it is of labour to capital, and the enormous also to be protected against being unshare which the possessors of the in- derbid for employment by a less highly struments of industry are able to take paid class of labourers, this is only from the produce. If competi- where old custom or local and partial tion has great power for evil, it is no monopoly has placed some particular less fertile of good, especially in what class of artisans in a privileged position regards the development of the indi- as compared with the rest; and the vidual faculties, and the success of time has come when the interest of innovations." It is the common error universal improvement is no longer of Socialists to overlook the natural in- promoted by prolonging the privileges dolence of mankind; their tendency to of a few. If the slopsellers and others be passive, to be the slaves of habit, to of their class have lowered the wages persist indefinitely in a course once of tailors, and some other artisans, by chosen. Let them once attain any making them an affair of competition instead of custom, so much the better in the end. What is now required is *P. 90. not to bolster up old customs, whereby limited classes of labouring people obtain partial gains which interest them in keeping up the present organization of society, but to introduce new general practices beneficial to all; and there is reason to rejoice at whatever makes the privileged classes of skilled artisans feel, that they have the same interests, and depend for their remuneration on the same general causes, and must resort for the improvement of their condition to the same remedies, as the less fortunately circumstanced and comparatively helpless multitude. |