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CO-OPERATIVE

more or less co-operative, there were, at the end of 1900, 90 such co-partnership associations at work in England. Some of them are very small, while others have businesses of £40,000 a year or more; the majority show fair, sometimes large, profits. Each is governed by a committee, or directors, who are elected by the members and appoint a manager. We constantly hear that co-operative production is a failure. There have no doubt been many failures, especially of big experiments attempted among men totally unprepared. But many of the failures counted were not truly co-operative. At the present day consumers’ production is successful beyond all question, while the net growth of producers’ associations in recent years has been marked both in number and importance. These two forms of production best illustrate the two rival theories which divide British co-operation, and between whose partisans the conflict has at times been sharp. The consumers’ theory maintains that all profit on price is abstracted from the consumer and must be ^theories returned to him; while to him should also belong all capital and control, subject to such regulations as the State and the Trade Unions enforce. This theory is fully exemplified in the English Wholesale Society, and in one of the corn mills, which employ workmen, whether co-operators or not, for wages only and admit no individual, but only co-operative societies, to membership. It is also exemplified by the great majority of the stores, though in their case the employee may become a member in his capacity as a consumer. The co-partnership theory, on the other hand, maintains that the workers actually employed in any industry, whether distributive or productive, should be partners with those who find the capital, and those who buy the produce, and should share -with them profit, responsibilities, and control. The consumers’ party contend that societies of producers make a profit out of the consumers, and thus are never truly co-operative, while as they multiply they must compete against each other. The co-partnership party answer that labour at least helps to make the profit, and that competition, as yet almost insignificant between their societies, can be avoided by federating them (a process long ago begun) for buying and selling in common, and for other common purposes, while leaving each the control and responsibility of its own affairs. They further advocate the eventual federation of the productive wing of cooperation with the distributive wing for settling prices and all matters in which their interests might conflict. In this way they say the co-operative system may extend indefinitely without sacrificing either individual responsibility and freedom, or a general unity and control, so far as these are necessary to secure the common interest. On the other hand they hold that the opposing system tends more and more to centralization and bureaucracy, and divorces the individual workman from all personal interest in his work and from any control over its conditions. They contend, moreover, that, in spite of the great advantages consumers’ production has in its command of a market and of abundant capital, only a small part of industry can ever be carried on by associations of the persons who actually consume the produce. On the working out of these two principles depends the future of co-operation. The example of Scotland probably throws light on the problem. There co-operative production, amounting in 1900 to £1,815,042, is nearly all carried on by federations of consumers’ societies, including the Scottish Wholesale, applying more or less successfully the co-partnership principle—i.e., their employees are admitted to share in profits, and may become members, whereby they are further admitted to share capital and control. The type of organization hence resulting is very much the same as where a society of producers admits consumers’ societies to membership and sets aside a proportion of the profits to be returned to them as dividend upon their purchases. To this type, we have seen, English productive societies started by producers have come,

SOCIETIES

and it would appear that those started by consumers must tend to it. Besides the societies already mentioned, the Irish cooperative dairies rank as co-partnership. The earliest and latest statistics of British and Irish co-operative productive societies, of whatever origin, accepting that principle are :— 1SS3. 1900. 265 15 Societies at work. £160,751 £3,553,593 Trade. £1,547,729 £106,436 Capital £9,031 £158,315 Profits £7,418 £114 Losses Unknown £20,545 Dividend on Wages An association of co-operative societies and individuals, called the Labour Association, exists to maintain this principle of copartnership in co-operative production and also promote its gradual adoption in businesses of a capitalistic character. Some progress in this latter direction is being made, there being a tendency to improve upon mere profit-sharing by capitalizing the workman’s “ bonus,” whereby he becomes a shareholder and the business is gradually modified in a co-operative direction. There are remarkable instances of such modification abroad, notably that of the great iron-foundry and “Familistere” at Guise in France; the most noteworthy in England is that of the South Metropolitan Gas Company. After only a few years of the system 3000 workers own shares worth over £103,000 besides £33,000 on deposit; they also elect two of themselves directors of the Company. Unfortunately this example is marred by a feud with the Trade Unions, whereas there is usually friendship and even alliance between Trade Unionism and co-partnership, and other, co-operative societies. In Ireland stores have not hitherto flourished, though a few exist. Irish co-operation is agricultural, and dates from the foundation of one co-operative dairy in 1889. Thence has grown a movement already of great importance and rapidly advancing. In 1890 there was still only one such society, in 1891 there were 17, but on 31st December 1900 there were 412, of which 171 were dairies, 106 agricultural societies, and 76 banks. By August 1901 the societies numbered about 470, of which of course riot all were yet at work, and the members about 54,000. To form a dairy the small working farmers of a district register a society and take up shares of £1 each, in proportion to the number of their cows. Each brings his milk to be separated, is paid for the butter-making material it contains, and receives back skim milk. Any profit is divisible, nine-tenths to the suppliers of milk in proportion to the value of their supplies, and one-tenth to the dairy employees as dividend on wages. These dairies in 1900 produced butter worth more than £700,000. Their rapid spread is due to their great influence in improving the quality of butter, and hence raising the farmers’ gains. The “ agricultural ” societies are chiefly engaged in buying farm requisites pure and cheap, and retailing them among their members; in this way they have saved the farmers very large sums. Their trade is about <£100,000. The cooperative banks, many of them just beginning, are of the Raiffeisen type described later (though a few have limited liability) and aim at providing the peasants with necessary capital and expelling the usurer. They are increasing rapidly. Among miscellaneous objects of co-operation are selling eggs, poultry, barley, and pigs, joint ownership of machinery, joint grazing, potato-spraying, producing flax, and so on, and these promise a great growth in number and variety. The dairy societies, moreover, have federated into an agency for reaching the English market; and the agricultural societies into an Irish Wholesale for purchasing to the best advantage. Besides the direct profits and economies of these societies, they have greatly benefited Ireland by teaching men of all classes, parties, and religions to act together for peaceful progress; they have led to a wide diffusion of better agricultural knowledge, and to the establishment by Government of the Agricultural Department. Turning abroad we find, in almost all civilized countries.