A CO-OPERATIVE COMMUNITY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1974, 26 November 1889, Page 1

A CO-OPERATIVE COMMUNITY.

People who have read a book which has been.a good deal talked of lately—- “ Looking Backward’’—will be interested in learning that an experiment of “ running ” a city very much on the socialistic lines therein described is now actually being tried by a cooperative society at Topolobampo, in Sinaloa, on the west coast of Mexico. The man who worked out the scheme, we are told by a Home paper, is Mr Albert K. Owen, a surveyor by profession, having an office in New York, Being interviewed by a representative of the paper, he thus explained his plans ; “It is; seventeen years,” he said, “ since X began to think out this scheme. I thought that if stock companies could run railroads, supply gas and other commodities, there was no reason why a stock company should not run all the means of transportation and production combined. We are, therefore, a stock company in which everyone has a share, and we employ no one but our own members. Private property we recognise to be clothing, household goods, one’s own earning’s, ornaments, tools, and machinery, so long as worked by the owner himself. Our society is called the Credit Fonder Company, because Credit Foncier means credit founded upon.home, and the first thing that the Company ensures is a home for every one of its members. The business of the Company is managed by ten directors, one at the head of 'each department, as follows; —1, deposits, insurance, etc.; 2, buildings, streets, and improvements; 3, law and. arbitration ; _ 4, motors, light, and heat; 5, fire, police, and sewage; 6, means of communication ; 7, diversification of industries; 8, education and amusements; 9, agriculture; 10, medicine, pharmacy, etc. Any one wishing to become a colonist reads our by-laws and accepts our principles, and then has to pay lOdol for a share in the stock. The stock is in lOdol shares, and no one can join the colony without having a share. For another lOdols he gets a lot for a house. The Company builds a house, and be pays the Company with his labor. He sits rent and tax free, and may remain in the house as long as he likes, but he cannot sell it except to the Company, which pays him what it cost him. All houses thus belong to the community. The shares that one man can hold are limited to forty-eight. If a man wants to grow farm produce the company allots him the land, fences it, and supplies laborers to cultivate it. The rate of wages is fixed by the. company —which supplies the seed and buys the crop—the price being arranged beforehand. The farmer can only sell to the community, which has control of the food supply. The workman is paid at the time, and if profit is made on the sale of the articles he makes to anyone outside the community he receives it, except a percentage which is retained for covering the expense of storage. The families live together as in a hotel. All the colony are educated free until they are twenty. They graduate by trades, and when they reach their majority are presented with a share of the stock.” Mr Owen, however, does not believe in the communist idea of equality of wages. The expert and skilful workman will earn more than the slow and clumsy. The company pay for tho quantity and quality of products made and the more a man makes the more of course he will gain. At present the pioneer colonists all receive the same pay, but that is a temporary arrangement. They are credited on the books with three dollars a day of eight hours. There are no cash payments, however. The company pay by “units of account,” which are cheques or counters given far services discharged within the c«lony. ; One unit represents an American dollar. Said Mr Owen:— “They are credits and debits, and a record is kept on the books of the amount of credit against debit every one has. Our colonists simply swop services. Any one who desires to leave and travel outside the colony obtains the money which his credits represent.” It would seem, however, that people are not yet fully educated up to “ Life on Joint Stock principles.” Mr Owen claims to have sold over 5000 j shares, but only 175 persons are settled in the colony, It is difficult, in the present unenlightened state of the public mind, to get people to see any particular advantage in not getting cash for their work.