Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/797

 Sr. VIF. WS 775 test, till some bond fide working man shall speak the mind of his own class about the conflicting appeals made to it. The two authors are agreed that Cooperation has reached a crisis in its history; it is at ' the parting of the ways.' ' Ever since the Newcastle Congress in 1873. . . "sharing profits with labour" has been armed and rearmed as the saving faith of the Cooperative Movement. Delegates from the democratic store and federal corn- mill, associations as devoid of any growing desire as they were inno- cent of any original intention to share profits with or yield power to storekeepers, salesmen, foremen millers, and general labourers, have repeated word by word the creed of the individualist School of Cooperaters with "three times three" cheers at each succeeding con- gress. Meanwhile the managers of these very associations have carried out their Owenire principles and democratic methods with rigid consistency in the extension of the productive lepartnlents of individual Stores, and in the formation of the two Wholesale Societies. The time came however when sincere advocates of the self-g.)verning and profit-sharing workshop, sickened by false following and lip-service, brought the whole question to a practical ssue ' (Miss Potter, p. 176). The Congress at Dewsbury (1888) declared in favour of the principle of profit-sharing, and remitted the question of ways and means to the constituent societies. )rghe result was that of 1,300 stores only four were prepared to recommend a bonus system to their members, and only five to suggest schemes of profit-sharing for the Wholesale Society's workshops (Ibid. 179). Miss Potter concludes that the Con- gress is not really representative (179). She admits too. that the majority of members are 'not convinced cooperaters' (191). Yet in the-'Rules, Orders and Forms of Proceeding of the Cooperative Union,' adopted in 1875 and supposed to state the law and the creed, it is said (on p. 1, under the head of ' Objects '): , This union is formed to promote the practice of truthfulness, justice arid economy i], produc- tion and exchange' iter alia: ' 2. By conciliating the conflicting interests of the capitalist, the worker, and the purchaser, through an equitable division among them of the fund commonly known as Profit.' The bone of contention is this ' fund commonly known as Profit.' Mr. Holyoake (see chapter xii.), Mr. Vansittart Neale, and Mr. Thomas Hughes would have it that the Stores and Workshops under the Union should carry out this second object as it stands, giving not only to the consumer but to the worker a share in the ' fund commonly known as Profit.' Miss Potter supports the orificial view, as presented by Mr. Benjamin Jones (Manager of the London branch of the Wholesale Society), and his companions in oce, that the division of profits among consumers is enough, and any attempts to make the workers share therein are necessarily vain, and that manufacture is best con- ducted by the Federation of Societies known as the Wholesale Society, and not by ' Individualism' (or independent societies). Mr. Holyoake's new book, which covers ground already familiar to