Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/799

 REVI.WS 777 Not so, say Mr. Holyoake and his friends; cooperation is not really democratic unless the worker shares in this fund, even in the stores, but especially in the workshops. At present the official policy in England is, as has been said, to give him no share whatever. Miss Potter defends the latter course; and bids even the Coopera- tive worker rely on his Trade Society. He certainly has found it necessary to do so. The Leicester Boot Society, ' the most perfect example of the individualist ideal' (Miss Potter p. 113, 139, cf. 149, &c., and Mr. Holyoake p. 134), grew up out of a strike of workers against Cooperative employers, namely the Wholesale Society. Even the bonus given by the Scottish Wholesale Society has not prevented occasional disputes with the Unions. The most fervid ' Individualist' will not refuse to go with Miss Potter in praising the resolve of the Trade Societies at all hazard to keep wages up to a ' living standard.' He may even allow that vulgar profit-sharing under private employers is all that Miss Potter says of it (pp. 154, 159). But he may continue to think his own ideal more in harmony with the aims of Trades Unions whan the rival ideal is, and may still think a multitude of real indus- rial partnerships, where workers share in management and profits, to e a higher type of industry than a few colossal companies whose orkers are hired servants with no more interest in the business hah other hirelings. Miss Potter acknowledges the occasional need f decentralization and Home Rule (e.#. pp. 102, 184-5). The question is how far the process should go. No one proposes to go back to the system of independent artisans' production with elimination of the employer (p. 167). The ' Individuals' of the Individualism which is the rival ideal to Federalism are not single persons but. single societies, which may possibly be federated but are to be governed by their own committee and not by the Central Board of a geat federation. Like the Lancashire folk, they are conceived to have a liking for ' managing their own affairs their own way' (cf. Miss Potter p. 37). Before accepting Miss Potter's contention that Federal management has succeeded where Individual groups have failed, a critical reader would expect her to deal with the former in the same thorough and candid way as she has dealt with the latter. He would expect her to go over the various productive enterprises of the English Wholesale Society, for example, one by one and tell us in each case how far success has been reached and after what failures. We read of 'Batley woollens manufactured at a positive loss' (p. 95) under the government of the Wholesale Society. Has the latter succeeded in its manufacturing at all, or only in its purveying of groceries ? Till this is shown (and our two authors give us little help here with facts and figures) there seems no warrant for entrusting the Federal Government with larger powers. There may be failures of the Wholesale Society, to set against the long list of ' Individualist' failures, a list which need not be more dis- couraging than the 844 failures of Cooperative Stores in 20 years (Miss Potter pp. 186, 254), or the endless number of Strikes that have