Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 27 - CHI-ELD.pdf/259

 COOPER —CO-OPERATIVE Cooper, Thomas Sidney (1803-1902), English painter, was born at Canterbury on 26th September 1803. In very early childhood he showed in many ways the strength of his artistic inclinations, but as the circumstances of his family did not admit of his receiving any systematic training, he began before he was twelve years old to work in the shop of a coach painter. A little later he obtained employment as a scene painter; and he alternated between these two occupations for about eight years. But the desire to become an artist continued to influence him, and all his spare moments were given up to drawing and painting from nature. At the age of twenty he went to London, drew for a while in the British Museum, and was admitted as a student of the Royal Academy. He then returned to Canterbury, where he was able to earn a living as a drawing-master and by the sale of sketches and drawings. In 1827 he settled in Brussels ; but four years later he returned to London to live, and by showing his first picture at the Royal Academy (1833) began an unprecedentedly prolonged career as an exhibitor. Cooper’s name is mainly associated with pictures of cattle or sheep, and the most notable of the many hundred he has produced are: “A Summer’s ISToon ” (1836), “A Drover’s Halt on the Fells” (1838), “A Group in the Meadows” (1845), “The Half-past One o’Clock Charge at Waterloo” (1847), “The Shepherd’s Sabbath” (1866), “The Monarch of the Meadows” (1873), “Separated but not Divorced” (1874), “Isaac’s Substitute” (1880), “Pushing off for Tilbury Fort” (1884), and “On a Farm in East Kent ” (1889). He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1845, and a Royal Academician in 1867. He presented to his native place, in 1882, the Sidney Cooper Art Gallery, built on the site of the house in which he was born. He wrote his reminiscences, under the title of My Life, in 1890; and died on 7th February 1902. Co-operative Societies.—The progress of co - operation, during the last twenty years of the 19th century, was very remarkable, both in the United Kingdom and abroad. Hot only have the societies, in spite of numerous failures, greatly increased in number, membership, capital, and trade, but they have come into close relations, both commercial and for propaganda, with other co-operative societies in their own country and abroad; and finally an important International Co-operative Alliance has been formed for promoting mutual helpfulness and international trading relations. The following figures show the growth of co-operation—that is to say, of working-class co-operation—in the United Kingdom :— Societies. Members. Capital. Business. 1876 . . 1113 493,189 £5,742,2971 £18,647,8171 1899 . . 1858 1,675,998 28,267,398 75,422,895 Practically all these societies are registered with limited liability under the Industrial and Provident Societies Acts, their government is democratic, based on one vote for man or woman ; and their members (or shareholders) and committeemen are almost exclusively the more provident of the working classes or belong to the class just above. By far the greater part of these figures represent Workmen’s Distributive Societies, or stores, flourishing chiefly in the North and Midlands of England and in Scotland, and numbering 1446, with 1,613,461 members, £22,294,624 capital, and sales of £45,047,446 the members year. The is that Leeds, -with Distribu- in 49 000 and largest £1,500,000 sales. ofThe shares in these societies are withdrawable in cash and not transferable. Their method is the “ Rochdale system,” now spread over the world, by which the twenty-eight poor weavers of Rochdale made co-operation, until then little but a dream and a series of failures, into a great practical success. A record is kept, by means ofmetal checks or otherwise, of each member’s purchases; and at the end of each quarter, after payment of a fixed interest (never more than 5 per cent., and in very many societies less) on shares, and sometimes a proportion of profit to the employees, the surplus 1 Figure not quite complete.

SOCIETIES

229

is divided to the members in proportion to their purchases. Thus they in effect obtain their necessaries at cost price. Not far from £7,000,000 is thus returned in the year, averaging nearly 2s. 8d. in the £ of purchases. In many successful societies an even higher dividend on purchases is paid, but the average prices of goods sold are often fixed above those current in the neighbourhood, so that the members, in addition to saving the retailer’s profit, use their Society as a sort of savings bank, where they put away a halfpenny or so for every shilling they spend. In addition to retailing, a store often manufactures bread, clothes, boots, or flour, or farms land, usually for its own members only, but occasionally for sale to other societies also. Their productions in this way reach about £4,000,000 a year. They also invest large and increasing sums in building cottages to sell or let to their members ; and they lend largely to their members to enable them to buy cottages. Outwardly these stores may look like mere shops, but they are really much more. First, they are managed with a view not to a proprietor’s profit but to cheap and good comAims. modities. Secondly, they have done an immense work for thrift and the material prosperity of the working classes, and as teachers of business and self-government. But, further, they have a distinct social and economic aim, namely, to correct the present inequalities of wealth, and substitute for the competitive system an industry controlled by all in the common interest and distributing on principles of equity and reason, mutually agreed on, the wealth produced. With this view they acknowledge the duties of fair pay and good conditions for their own employees, and of not buying goods made under bad conditions. The best societies further set aside a small proportion of their profits for educational purposes, including concerts, social gatherings, classes, lectures, reading-rooms and libraries. They often make grants to causes with which they sympathize ; and their members are often prominent in local government affairs, cooperative candidates being occasionally run for school-boards and town councils. Though the societies are non-political, they are usually centres of “progressive” ideas. There are of course many defects, and of their million and two-thirds members a large, and many fear an increasing, proportion, attracted by the prosperity of the societies, think chiefly of what they themselves gain ; but the government of the movement has, hitherto at least, been largely in the hands of men of ideas who believe that stores are but a step to co-operative production and on to the “co-operative commonwealth.” It is indeed only when we come to federations of co-operative societies, and above all to production, with its large number of employees, that the industrial and educational side of the movement is most seen. The Co-operative Union, Limited, for instance, is a propagandist federation of all the chief co-operative societies in Great Britain, and some in Ireland, which does a great amount of educational work. Its income is over £8000 a year ; it looks after the legal and parliamentary interests of the societies, carries on much educational work by means of literature, lectures, classes, scholarships, summer meetings at the universities, and so on ; organizes numerous local conferences for discussion, and once a year a great national Co-operative Congress and Exhibition of productions, in some chief centre of population. The Co-operative Wholesale Society, Limited, is a trading federation of nearly 1100 stores, which include over 1,300,000 individuals. Founded in 1863 on a small scale, in 1901 its capital was £3,314,887 and its employees about 11,000. Its sales in 1901 were estimated to reach £17,000,000. Besides its merchant trade, it manufactures to the value of £2,500,000, owning factories, warehouses, and land in ,_r0 .uc ,.wn many districts. It owns steamships and is a large ' importer, and is also the bank of the Co-operative Societies, and the chief outlet for the always redundant capital of the stores. The Scottish stores also have their Wholesale Society, not less important relatively. For many purposes these two societies are in partnership. Their net profits are returned to the stores as a dividend on purchases, and thence to the whole body of members. There are also smaller local federations of stores, mostly for cornmilling and baking. Strongly contrasting with this production by associations of consumers, or “consumers’ production,” is the co-partnership or ‘ ‘ Labour Co - partnership ” branch of co - operation. The simplest form of such co-operation is an association Co-partof producers formed to carry on their own industry, nershlp. Originally such associations were intended to consist solely of the workers employed, but membership is now open to the distributive societies, which are their chief customers, and usually to all sympathizers. Shares are transferable, not withdrawable. Profits first pay the agreed “wages of capital,” and of what remains the main part goes to the employees as a dividend on their wages and to the customers as a dividend on their purchases. In well-established societies the dividends on wages average about Is. on the £ of wages. This is not usually paid in cash, but credited to the employees as share capital, whereby all may become members. Besides other producers’ associations.