TABLE IX.-Showing the Position of Forty-One Co-operative Productive Societies in 1876

Note.-Number of societies making returns, forty-one.

DISCUSSION on MR. BENJAMIN JONES'S PAPER.

MR. E. VANSITTART NEALE said he had very little to add to what had been said in the very full, complete, and excellent paper. One omission however he would notice, namely, the absence of any reference to the present Industrial and Provident Societies Act passed in 1876 to consolidate and amend the law relating to these societies, which gave them all the advantages for carrying on their business enjoyed by the more wealthy associations formed under the Joint Stock Companies Act, including the power of holding land to an unlimited extent. Naturally the success of co-operative enterprise must depend upon the wisdom with which it was conducted; he would add also upon the heartiness with which their promoters entered into those higher objects and aims that the Rochdale Pioneers originally set before themselves, and from which he was afraid co-operators had to a certain extent backslidden. These societies were mainly formed of consumers, and consumers had a perfectly insatiable appetite for eating up everything, including the benefit which ought to go to the workers. The purchasers were legitimately entitled to the large benefits which they might secure from the retailers' profits as to production; but then the manufacturers' profits should, as he held, be employed for the permanent elevation of the mass of those who did the work. In respect to the amount of co-operative trade, Mr. Jones had suggested that the productive sales required to be added to the amount given in the registrar's returns. But this appeared to him to be a mistake. The societies returned the total amount of goods sold, whether the goods had been bought or made by themselves. There was no need therefore of this addition. In another respect there was danger of an error which care should be taken to avoid, namely, the danger of counting sales of goods once or twice as sold by the wholesales to the retail societies, and again as sold by the retail societies to their members. No doubt the wholesale sales expressed an additional amount of business done, but not an increased quantity of goods sold. In order to obviate this danger it was the practice in the analysis of the registrar's returns published every year in the reports of the co-operative congresses, to distinguish the retail sales from the wholesale, stating each separately, so that no one might imagine the co-operative trade to be 9 or 10 millions more than it really was. The paper had indeed distinguished these amounts, but with some tendency to run them together in its totals. He wished therefore to call attention to the fact that in the official co-operative statistics annually published the returns were carefully distinguished so as to get the actual amount of goods sold without any sort of exaggeration. But after every allowance of this sort had been made, the figures before them were an evidence that the working population had in their co-operative trade really tapped a very

considerable source of wealth. This was a fact of no small importance. Nothing in his opinion was better calculated to correct the wild and extravagant ideas afloat at the present day than this fact, that the steady, industrious, and thoughtful portion of the working population were now able to raise themselves up not by pulling others down, but by associating themselves together for co-operative ends.

Mr. G. J. HOLYOAKE said the author had given an exhaustive and complete account of the commercial organisation and progress of co-operation; and no doubt if he could have taken more time he would have described other aims than those already mentioned, aims of which Mr. Neale and himself thought more than of the material progress that had yet been made. In co-operation there were strata of opinion as there were in the geological world. He belonged to the old red sandstone formation. He was with co-operation when it began, and observed the process of its evolution from Owenite societies. Mr. Jones had cited one famous clause from the rules of the Rochdale Pioneers which contained the aspiration which the old Pioneers had. He (Mr. Holyoake) said the words written which declared that their objects were to "arrange education, production, and government.' They were dissatisfied with the limited education that then existed. They wanted also to found stores upon lines which should secure to the workman equal advantages with the purchaser. Those lines were laid down by one Charles Howard, of the Rochdale Society. The Hull Corn Mill, the Govan, and Sheerness Societies were not co-operative in any modern sense; they were merely small joint stock associations for the advantage of a few shareholders. Mr. Howard proposed that the shareholders should have simply 5 per cent. interest upon their capital, and that all other profits should be given to the purchasers. That seemed then a foolish thing to propose, seeing that few societies made any profit. Yet that was the principle which made co-operation, for as soon as the purchasers had a tangible interest in the results, the sales increased and profits and members accumulated. It was how those large sums of money came to appear in the tables given by the author of the paper read. These early co-operators intended that the profit should be divided amongst the purchasers. They intended to and did establish co-operative mills in which the profits were divided according to the wages of the workmen, as in the stores they were divided according to the purchases. The shopkeepers took shares in the Rochdale Cotton Mill. The shopkeepers did not take shares in the stores because they were shop owners, but they were not mill owners, and therefore they took shares in the mill. As soon as they became the majority they stopped all profit to the workmen, and in Rochdale to this day the profits of the workshop (speaking in a co-operative sense) have been looted by the shareholders. He hoped to see the principle of co-operation grow so that what was now done in the store should also be done in the workshop. He cared much for the progress they had made, which however was small compared with that which they would have made if they

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had been as faithful to the workshop as they had been to the store. He honoured very much the men concerned in their great wholesale co-operative organisation for the wisdom and patience with which they had built up that great commercial enterprise; but when they began to establish workshops they gave the profit to the stores, who, like the capitalist, appropriated the earnings of labour. That was not co-operation as the pioneers conceived it. One of their higher aims therefore was to diffuse such knowledge as should concede to the workman an equitable share of the profits that he created. Another of their aims was to induce purchasers to give an adequate price for that which they bought, and to inquire, so far as they had the means of doing it, whether the workpeople who produced the article bought so cheaply had any profit from its production. To buy without trying to know whether the producers of the article lived by their work and had some prospect of competence by labour, was in his opinion an immorality. It was heartlessness to prefer cheapness to human welfare. It was now the acknowledged duty of society not merely to punish crime or to cure disease, but to prevent it. The causes of poverty were as well known as the causes of disease, and might be as certainly prevented. If only half of the millions of profits produced in workshops were divided among the workmen who produced it, pauperism would be no more known in our land. These were some of the higher aims of co-operation. If in years to come they would be told that it had succeeded in the workshops as it had already succeeded in the stores, the statistics of its progress would be far more eloquent and interesting than those Mr. Jones had placed before this Society.

Rev. ISAAC DOXSEY said one result of that discussion could not fail to be the uplifting, in the estimation of the many, of their working men. When they learnt that a million of working men were affected by this co-operative movement, and had been developing an amount of tact and prudence, and patience, and perseverance, which were among the noblest elements of British character, he was sure that they would have a higher esteem for working men than had yet been given to them. He quite agreed with Mr. Holyoake with regard to the question of dealing with the workshops, and hoped that in process of time something more would be heard on that question. The co-operative movement had, in the main, grown up within the history of this Society's existence, and it was a grand thing to see the progress that had been made. In 1862 the sales from co-operative stores were 2,333,000l., while in 1881, twenty years afterwards, the annual sales reached 20.901,000. During those twenty years these stores had sold goods to the amount of 223 millions, and had made a profit of 17,450,000l. Although Mr. Holyoake might naturally object in some respects to the way in which the profits were divided, it must be remembered that the profits were divided for the most part among the working classes, and 17 millions of money to be divided among a million of working men in that time was no mean consideration. The sales had increased in that time from 4

to 29 millions, though possibly a little mistake had been made in not accounting for the goods that came through one society to another. It was rather curious that the London "Wholesale," with a return of 5 millions, had only made a profit of 83,000l., or 1595 per cent., while the Scottish "Wholesale" on a return of 1,857,000l., made 50,000l., or 2.7 per cent. It might be that the Scotchmen understood the management of these things better than the southerners; but he referred to this not merely for the purpose of contrasting the profits made, but to show at how small a ratio of profit the whole of this vast business had been transacted. Of course there were objections to be raised by wholesale and retail traders that some men were displaced by the operation of the co-operative societies, but while some were displaced others were provided for who were not before, and the ultimate outcome would undoubtedly be that everyone would get more fairly paid for what he did for the service of his fellows.

Mr. E. V. NEALE explained that the larger ratio of profit made by the Scottish "Wholesale," was, as he was informed, mainly owing to the wholesale dealers in Scotland habitually carrying on to some extent what would be regarded in England as retail business.

Professor H. S. FOXWELL said it was clear that the fundamental principle of co-operation was partnership and common interest, and that as the movement developed, this partnership must be extended until it embraced the workshop as well as the store. The marvellous success of distributive co-operation was due to giving the purchaser an interest in the business done by the store. The idea of taking the consumer into direct partnership was the brilliant invention of the Rochdale pioneers. It found the cooperative movement almost extinct; it made it what we know it to be to-day. Why should not the producer be taken into partnership in the same way, and with similar results? It seemed to him that partnership was even more essential in the case of the producer than of the consumer. Production was more difficult to manage than distribution. No precaution should be neglected which would diminish the difficulties of management; nothing was so calculated to do this as the adoption of the principle of profitsharing. At the same time they should not too hastily condemn co-operators for hesitating at once to introduce it; because private employers, to whose experience they might naturally look for an example, had in this country very generally held aloof from it. Why this should be so in England, when profit-sharing had obtained so remarkable a success on the other side of the channel, it was not easy to say. It was very much to be desired that any objections which were felt to profit-sharing should be distinctly formulated. He had not heard of any difficulties which could not be overcome by a little perseverance, management, and tact. The presumption was clearly in favour of the principle. Its adoption would arouse so much interest and enthusiasm, that there would be a considerable increase in production without any increase,