and in all less important than in Paris. As in the case of the stores established by the civil servants of the British Crown, many of those in France were founded by persons of the middle class, including members of such professions as law, literature, and medicine. The productive societies, confined to the manufacturing towns, seem to be for the present at a standstill. They naturally participate, however, in the spirit of the times. The reaction against personal government in the State has reached them, and for a single manager it is now proposed to substitute a council. These co-operative associations are sure, on the return of quiet times, to receive a new impetus from several sources—from the increasing tendency to association in the national mind; from the growth of societies which, now under the name of "Societies of Resistance," and now under that of "Workmen's Chambers of Commerce," are, in effect, reproductions of British trades' unions; and from the casualties of every kind which throw men out of work. "There is hardly a corporate body in Paris," wrote M. Villeroux in June, "which has not its society. Many have been founded in the departments. Every day one hears of the formation of some new society." The "Societies of Resistance," it appears, are numerous and widely diffused, rather than individually strong or collectively organized. But, if a really free Government permanently replace the exploded Empire, they will probably become universal and complete; and, in the meantime, the International has contributed not a little to knit them together, first in each important trade of itself, and afterwards in all trades whatsoever. One of the most important and interesting phases that co-operation had begun to assume in France was, the projected institution of workshops for the employment of men out of work. This idea would seem to include a general provision against forced idleness; but the suggestion sprang from the wasteful inaction to which labour is reduced by a strike; and, on first opening a shop of the kind, the saddlers of Paris are well understood to have combined the teachings of experience with the lights of theory. The societies for mutual credit have doubtless suffered, with all other peace interests, from the hostile invasion of the soil. In both Paris and Lyons, however, they were tolerably numerous, and had been heard of as existing in not a few less important towns. Lyons was their headquarters; but, in the smaller places, they appear to have assumed more distinctly the scale, or at least the character, of banks, as affording facilities for discounting bills and procuring loans. M. Elie Reclus, a man who carries his views as far as most, deeply regrets the failure of the Labour Credit Association in Paris, and is rather impatient at the slow progress in co-operation there and elsewhere; but he refuses to despair, not merely because he sees in it the

only possible solution of social difficulties, but because, too, the very increase of those difficulties will be sure, he thinks, to force it onward to complete and universal application.

The co-operative movement in Italy grows, according to Professor Vigano, in a most extraordinary manner; but, being taken in bad part by the well-to-do classes, it has been retarded by some failures. The Society of Como, framed upon the Rochdale platform, was doing business on a large scale, and bade fair to be exceedingly prosperous; but, for want of laws to regulate such societies, from the heavy pressure of taxation, from public prejudice, and from other causes external to its own management, "its life fell into a crisis from which it would be hard to emerge unscathed."

"The economists of the past," says the learned and enlightened Professor, "may cry out; but, unless we promote in every way institutions tending to conciliate the three factors of production, namely, landowners, capitalists, and workmen-in short, capital with labour-strikes will become yet more general, more exacting, and more powerful; and either the social crisis will become more threatening, or place will be given to those institutions by which alone the harmony of classes and the peace of society can be maintained."

In order that co-operation may have fair play among ourselves, there must be an amendment of the law in relation to such interests. It asks no favour, but only a clear stage. The leaders of the movement earnestly deprecated the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Friendly Societies Acts Amendment Bill. They communicated their views. by delegation to Mr. Lowe, who partly admitted that the co-operative bodies were entitled to exemption from his proposed legislation, and had good claims to a law of their own. The consequence was, that he desisted from his first intention, and handed the subject over to the Home Secretary. As one lesson derived from this experience, the Congress meeting in Manchester have seen the wisdom of appointing a law clerk, at a suitable salary, to advise on all legal matters and to watch the progress of legislation so far as co-operative interests are concerned. As long as the law remains either uncertain or inefficient, such an officer is obviously necessary; nor, considering the interests at stake, would he be other than expedient were the law made as satisfactory as possible. The claim allowed in Mr. Cave's Act to the holders of life policies, cannot be withheld from the members of co-operative societies, who ask for no more protection than is granted by law to all members of the community as to solid interests with respect to which they cannot individually protect themselves. Societies which are turning over ten millions a year, and possess a capital equal to a fourth part of that amount, cannot be overlooked or neglected by the Government and the Legislature. They demand a just protection, in common with the smallest trader;

but what they want yet more is the same freedom of action; not the bestowment of any special privileges, but the removal of all hampering restrictions.

For those readers or members of trades who have not joined in the co-operative movement, whether for distribution or production of goods, it is highly desirable that they should have and weigh full, and at the same time authentic, information as to what has been attempted, what accomplished, and what may be done. The benefits attending stores are obvious; they come home to every man's bosom. In like manner, no doubt, would the benefits attending co-operative workshops come home, in time, to every man's business. Workmen, for example, have but vague notions, for the most part, as to the profits made by masters. They may think them more, they seldom think them less, than they are. A co-operative workshop yields to the co-operatives that knowledge and that experience which, as individual workmen, they had no means of acquiring. If, in the absence of real and sufficient information, they had relied upon conjectural estimates, and, on actual experience of their own, found those. guesses to be in excess of the fact, the tendency of such discoveries would be to check unreasonable demands, and either to put an end to strikes, or to reduce them to the lowest point of hard necessity.

Mr. Pare, in the glow of his genuine enthusiasm, anticipates the day when co-operation, like the angel in Revelation, will proclaim "bad times" to be no more. He traces these to three causesdisproportionate production, want of concert among producers, and the absence of an equitable commerce. "Trade," he says, "becomes unsteady because markets are glutted. We are smothered in our own sweets-have so many goods, that we do not know what to do with them." This, at any rate, is no visionary view of the matter. "When trade is good," remarks Mr. Thomas Brassey, M.P., "our iron-founders and cotton-spinners are too ready to increase the productive resources of their establishments. This leads to overproduction, and a consequent cessation of demand. It cannot be doubted that this spasmodic and fluctuating character of our trade produces an unhappy effect upon the operatives who are subject to its influence." Now, while, during the American Civil War, or in consequence of its disastrous effects, the cotton trade generally was far from prosperous, the co-operative mills at Oldham were both peaceably and profitably going. No precise explanation of this reported fact is at hand; but the reason may be found, perhaps, in an analogous example, and may be traced home to that complete unselfishness which is the final result of co-operation. Why are the stores established? To enable every man to procure supplies at the lowest cost.

Why not, then, build cottages or produce generally on the

same principle? This would not merely restrain over-production; it would prevent and preclude it. Let the cottage be built to benefit the builder, not the mere capitalist. This is what has been done at Oldham also; but, at the same time, another society built on a different principle. That which built for the builder's own use, has not a house on hand; but that which built for stock, and not to order, has, in one district alone, eight-and-twenty cottages which nobody comes to take.

Co-operative production has receded instead of advancing, if individual experience is always a sure guide. "There was a time," says Mr. Pare," when I was clad from head to foot in apparel of co-operative production; and I do not know why I am not now: I ought to be." The defect would seem to arise from the insufficient circulation of the goods produced, and not from the absolute lack of one or more articles of dress. There are co-operative stores the committees of which are not aware that they might supply themselves with boots and shoes from co-operative makers. Out of nearly seven hundred stores, less than one hundred have yet entered into the butcher's meat line, though more than a third of the whole have gone freely into drapery, a much riskier business. When information is more widely diffused, and all wants are better borne in mind, the disposition to co-operate in both distribution and production will increase, especially if the true principle of co-operation be fully carried out and fairly applied. There will then be no ground to complain that the trades in their unions have not caught the co-operative spirit. That spirit dwells in the most heroic form in every trades' union that understands the reason of its own existence; and they are not creatures of yesterday, knowing nothing.

"If," said the eloquent and the honest Robert Hall, a full half century ago, "the Framework Knitters' Union is dissolved, it is universally allowed they will sink lower and lower; nor can any limits be assigned to which they may not descend. Before its formation, nearly half the subsistence of the workmen was drawn from the parishes, or, in other words, from the public. But what can be conceived more monstrous than a manufacture carried on at the public expense, but not for the public benefit, where all the profits are appropriated to one description of persons, while the public are taxed to an enormous amount to enable a few individuals to reserve to themselves those advantages?"

Yes, these self-asserting unionists want something more than mere wages; and they will be the first to see that co-operation is the way to get it. The relations of capital and labour have never been more simply or more clearly expounded than by Mrs. Fawcett in her excellent "Political Economy for Beginners." The joiner who made himself a plane and let it out on hire, is a view of the small capitalist which makes skill capital, if not all labour whatsoever.

Have not the compositors and pressmen of the Manchester Printing Office already made this discovery? Why have not a greater number of manufacturing, distributing, and producing societies anticipated or followed this right example? Those which have not, may see in this omission a more real reason why any trades stand aloof than is to be found in their supposed indifference to the advantages held out and realized. Where, asks Mr. Isaiah Lee, of Oldham, are the co-operative manufactories that give bonus to labour? Another man, of the same place, suggested another reason why co-operation may not always run as smoothly and as swiftly as it might. They projected a co-operative machine shop; but no man was to have a share unless he belonged to a trade society. On this exclusive basis they could not raise money enough even to start. It is manifestly essential, at any rate, to the complete carrying out of the principle of co-operation, that no muzzle should be clapped upon the mouth of the ox that treads out the corn. Unless the hands in a store or a workshop get a fair and full share of the proceeds, the shareholders do exactly what private firms do, make as much as they can by the labour of other men, and keep as much of it as they can in their own pockets. At Leeds, on the contrary, the persons employed receive, besides full average wages, ten per cent. of all profits over the first ten pounds; and it is to be hoped that the principle which this division of profits involves, will soon become the universal and invariable rule.

"We are in great danger," remarks Mr. Hughes, M.P., " of being carried away by the commercial success of the movement, and of forgetting the principles which should leaven our whole action and life as co-operators. Our object is to make trade honest, to give every worker his share in the profits of whatever business he may be engaged in, to raise the whole class of labouring people to a higher and nobler (as well as more comfortable) life than their present one. There must, therefore, be no closing of the doors of successful associations to non-members, and no employment of non-members without giving them a chance of sharing profits."

Co-operative banking is a branch of the subject which merits instant consideration. It will demand, no doubt, great care and caution; but the enterprise is one that lies as fairly and as freely open to the humblest wage-earner as to the wealthiest money-maker. Nay, it has been brought under the notice, and within the reach, of the working classes in ways not incident to the experience and circumstances of many of the affluent. The considerable funds constantly in the possession of friendly societies, trade societies, and building societies, naturally suggest separate, or, what would be better, combined measures among themselves for the purpose of retaining the fructifying results of this collective capital, instead of allowing their large profits to slip through their fingers into other