The Temuka Leader SATURDAY. OCTOBER 4, 1890. CO-OPERATION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2107, 4 October 1890, Page 2

The Temuka Leader SATURDAY. OCTOBER 4, 1890. CO-OPERATION.

Ii a recent issue of the Melbourne Age appears the following on the subject of co-operation:—

*• In Groat Britain there were in 1888, according to the last report of the Cooperative Board, 1464 associations for productive and distributive purposes, the members numbering 932,428, having a share capital of £10,393,394 and a loan capital of £2,408,658; and the goods they sold during the year amounted to £36,735,045 in value, and yielded a net profit of £3,414,407.”

This certainly is most extraordinary. Co-operation is a new thing. It began a little over 40 years ago, and the fact that it has reached such dimensions in such a limited duration of time indicates what it will do in the near future. In the year 1844 twenty-eight Rochdale weavers clubbed together and bought tea and sugar and a few other articles at wholesale prices, and from this co-operation has grown to the dimensions referred to above. This, let it be known, refers only to Great Britain, but that is not the only country in which the system is, at work. Some five or ten years later it spread to France, thence to Germany, and later still to the United States and other countries. Co-operation in these countries let it be remembered is not confined to distribution; it is also employed in production. The cooperative societies have their own factories, their own machinery, their own buildings, their own land, and their own everything, and they manufacture as well as distribute. In Germany co-operative savings banks were opened in 1850 by a man named Schulze Delitzsh in a town of about 6000 inhabitants. These banks, too, are an extraordinary success, and are worked as follows: Each member must be a shareholder, and show proof of solvency. The liability is unlimited, and all shareholders are responsible to the extent of their properties. One i can enter or withdraw at pleasure, the entrance fees being light. The entrance fees go to provide a reserve fund, and that, which is swelling to immense proportions together with the properties of the various shareholders, make the security the bank can offer so good that it can at any moment borrow money at the cheapest rate of interest. Several years ago we suggested to the Farmers’ Co-operative Association to adopt this system, but they have not yet done so, and the loss is theirs. The institution would be ten times more useful and more

powerful if it adopted this system, as it could under such circumstances assist farmers in distress, and provide capital for stimulating industries. Our suggestions have never been adopted, and they never will, so long as the institution is managed chiefly in the interest of its wealthier shareholders.

It is, of course, under the circumstances useless to make any suggestions to tbe Farmers Co-operatiye Association so long as it is under the present management, but we do hope that the dissemination of suah knowledge as that contained in the above quoted extract will cause tradesunionists to direct their energies to the establishment of co-operative institutions of all kinds. Co-operation is not an experiment; it is a natural growth proved by experience to be sound in practice as well as in theory. There can be no doubt as to what it will result in eventually. One lesson the whole thing teaches, and it is that labor requires very little capital to produce wealth, while 'capital is absolutely useless without labor. Capital is therefore more dependent on labor than labor is on capital, and it would be to the interest of capital to treat labor well. Men laugh now at Mr Millar’s Assertion that he will have a fleet of steamers plying along the New Zealand coast before long. There is nothing to laugh at in this. What co-operation has already done proves

that this is possible, and if the people take up the idea there is no reason why it should not be done. One thing the working men can learn from these facts, and that is that their greatest hope is in co-operation. Let them adopt the co-operative system not only in storekeeping but in farming, in manufacturing, in banking, and in buildings, and they will soon succeed in lifting labor to a higher place in the social scale.