Aneurin Williams

“ The end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries were the culminating days of the industrial revolution, when the old organization of domestic industry had given way before the factory system, and the population of the factory districts was suffering a martyrdom, with ruin of body and degradation of character, from unbridled competition, long hours, women’s and children’s labour, pauper apprenticeship, great fluctuations of trade and employment, dearness and adulteration of provisions, the truck system and insanitary homes. ”

“ On the other hand, there is some working together for the production of wealth which without being competitive, or based on service, is not strictly voluntary: thus in primitive societies there is much customary help, combined with customary division of the produce; and in advanced societies we have state and municipal socialism. These are indeed sometimes included in co-operation, but at least they are not voluntary co-operation, since the individual has no choice but to take part in them; they depend on the power of the ruler to coerce the ruled, or of the majority to coerce the minority. ”

“ Owen, having himself become a great employer of labour, after starting as a draper’s assistant, saw that this was in every sense waste, and that as it paid the manufacturer to have the best machinery and not to overdrive it, but to tend it well and keep it in the best repair, so it would pay him, and abundantly pay the nation, to have the human machines well cared for, not overworked, and kept in the best condition. ”

“ Harm has undoubtedly been done in certain cases by forcing co-operative societies, whether from political motives or merely mistaken policy. Yet even as to money subventions, good authorities, while admitting the great dangers, remain convinced that the advantages overbalance them, self-help being evoked, and helped over initial difficulties which would otherwise be insuperable. Experience in fact shows that governments can do a very great deal, at least for agricultural co-operation, but only on condition that they encourage, and do not undermine, self-help and private initiative. ”

“ They contend, moreover, and it is indeed admitted that, in spite of the great advantages which 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. Outside this small part, therefore, voluntary co-operation is impossible except as some form of co-partnership. ”

“ Nothing is paid on the shares as interest or dividend, all profit being voted once for all to the ordinary reserve and the indivisible reserve, the latter the backbone of the system. In every large district the Raiffeisen banks are federated in a Union, and these Unions culminate in a General Agency. As an intermediary among themselves, and between them and the money market, the banks have also a central bank with a capital of £500,000, and with ten provincial branches. A great deal of agricultural co-operation has arisen from these banks as centres, and with the money they have supplied. ”

“ The consumers’ theory maintains that all profit on price is abstracted from the consumer, and must be 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 some of the smaller federations for production, which employ workmen, whether co-operators or not, for wages only, and admit no individual, but only co-operative societies, to membership. ”

“ Though the societies are non-political, and have refused to join the labour representation movement, they are usually centres of “progressive” ideas. There are of course many defects, and of their two million 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.” ”

“ Thus while voluntary association is sometimes advocated as a step towards, and sometimes on the other hand as a substitute for, and bulwark against, state socialism, we find in practice these two forces working each in its own sphere, and in ways complementary one to the other, while underlying and essential to both is the force of individual action and self-help. ”

“ Since 1895 the co-operators and co-operative societies of many far-distant lands—almost of the whole world—have been drawn together by the International Co-operative Alliance, a body which, without attempting to interfere in their differences, collects information from all, and distributes it to all, keeps them all in touch, and every few years calls their delegates together in congress, to discuss their problems, and to remember their common ideals. ”

“ The English workman employed Germany and credit co-operation. for wages is against the credit which means spending them before they are earned: continental co-operation seeks by collective credit to put into the hands of working peasants, craftsmen and traders, the stock and the tools without which their labour is vain. Credit for consumption is the road to poverty; credit for production the road to well-being. ”

“ It is little more than a generation since a few men, turning to account the strong national feeling aroused by the defeat of 1864, started a great educational movement which has left its mark on all strata of Danish society. After the People’s High School, technical schools arose in various places; and to these, and to the excellent continuation schools in the country districts, the Danes are beholden for the regeneration of their agriculture. ”

“ In many successful societies even more is paid, but the average is falling. Where dividend is high, prices 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 and millinery, sometimes farms land, or grinds corn; usually for its own members only, but occasionally for sale to other societies also. ”

“ 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 educational side of the movement and its power to promote industrial reform are 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. Its income of £10,000 a year is contributed by the Co-operative Societies. ”

“ The popular individualistic philosophy of that day taught that the good of society would be achieved by each individual seeking in his business relations the interest of himself and his family; but Owen maintained that the well-being of the social body could only be served if each individual made that his conscious aim. For this reason he and his disciples were called Socialists. He taught further that a man’s character depended mainly upon the circumstances which influenced his life ”

“ The world has 30,000 co-operative credit societies, not counting building societies; and though they are organized in many groups, especially in their native Germany, for local reasons, or because of some modification, or some compromise between the two systems, the two types really include them all. There is, however, a strong tendency to introduce limited liability into various offshoots of the one type and the other; even into the orthodox Schulze-Delitzsch banks themselves, when they grow big. ”

“ 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 internal affairs. They further advocate the eventual federation of the productive wing of co-operation with the distributive, for settling prices and all matters in which their interests might conflict. ”

“ In co-operation, meaning voluntary co-operation, there may also, it is true, be frequent overruling of the minority by the majority, but only so far as the minority have, when joining the association, voluntarily agreed to permit, and subject always to an effective ultimate right of secession. ”

“ Workmen in many parts of the country had formed groups with the ultimate object of founding self-supporting communities. If the government and the rich would not provide capital enough to start communities, the workers would start them themselves. Thus was the democratic basis given to co-operation. As a means they had been founding co-operative societies, which are sometimes called “union shops” to distinguish them from the later growth of societies of the Rochdale type. The members began by buying provisions wholesale and retailing them to themselves at current prices ”

“ There are dairies, societies to purchase farm requisites, societies of grape-growers, hop-growers and beetroot-growers, distilleries, labour societies, insurance societies, societies to own warehouses and granaries and to sell produce, to purchase land and resell it in small holdings, and even several societies which purchase land to cultivate it in common. The close connexion between credit-societies and other agricultural co-operation is exemplified in the Central Union of orthodox Raiffeisen credit societies at Neuwied. ”

“ 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 to some millions sterling, is nearly all carried on by federations of consumers’ societies, including the Scottish Wholesale, which apply 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 in capital and control. ”

“ Profits first pay the agreed “wages of capital,” usually 5%, 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 dividend on wages averages about 1s. on the £. This is not usually paid in cash, but credited to the employees as share capital, whereby all may become members. Besides other producers’ associations, more or less co-operative, there are over a hundred co-partnership societies at work in England, against a dozen or fifteen in 1883. ”

“ By means of these societies the country has been greatly enriched. The farmer not uncommonly belongs to ten co-operative societies, besides probably a farmers’ club. The work of starting and administrating the societies is seldom paid, and many farmers give much time to it gratuitously. They are in the main organized on the same principles as the dairies, but with variations; the largest egg export society, for instance, has over 30,000 members. It is not a federation of village societies, but a centralized body with many branches. ”

“ The branch of co-operation which has been a great success in the United States consists of the great co-operative building societies, but building societies are not considered part of the co-operative movement in Great Britain. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Each borrower must specify the purpose for which he wants a loan, say to buy a cow or drain a field, or pay off a money-lender, and this is rigorously inquired into. Only members can borrow. Any member, however poor, can borrow for a profitable approved purpose, and no one, however rich, for any other. Practically all the members see that the money is applied as agreed; and, while the loan is often made for a long period, a year or two—even for ten or more—so as to repay itself out of the profit, power is reserved to call it in at short notice if misapplied. ”

“ These workmen’s Co-operative Stores, or Distributive Societies, flourish chiefly in the north and midlands of England and in Scotland, but are found more or less all over the country. They, and practically all other British co-operative societies, are registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act, which constitutes them corporate bodies, with limited liability, and fixes £200 as the maximum that any member may hold in the share capital. Their government is democratic, based on one vote each, for man or woman ”