MONDAY, APRIL 20. 1885.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 86, 20 April 1885, Page 2

MONDAY, APRIL 20. 1885.

The subject of co-operation has recently been brought under the notice of the industrial classes of Auckland. By the last mail we received a report showing the results of a very remarkable co-

operative experiment that is now being made in Paris. The trades unions of the French capital have advanced a stage beyond the English unions, which confine their efforts to regulating the relations between employer and workman, and have combined for the purpose of co-operative contracting. They encountered at the start the initial difficulty of inadequate capital to purchase materials and supply a wages fund from which advances could be made against labour. An opportune legacy left by M. Rampal, a capitalist, however, overcame that obstacle, and the results of the operations of these societies in ISS4, aided by the loans advanced at 3 per cent, from this fund, are now published. The will of the testator provided that the fund should be administered by the Council, and although unwilling to undertake the management of the trust, the Council have performed the duty which was so unceremoniously thrust upon them. They made advances to nine unions representing different departments of the building trade as follows :— 1. To tho Association of the Working Carpontera of the Seine, 30,000 francs (£1,200). 2. To the Association of the Working Carpontera of Villotto, 30,000 franca (£1,200), 3. To tho Association of tho Working Painters of Paris, 17,500 francs (£700). 4. To tho Union of Stonocuttera of Paris, 4.500 francs (£192). 5. To "L'Union" Co-operativo Society of Working Houao Paintora, 3,900 francs (£156). G. To tho Society of Working Roofers and Plumbers of Paris, 3.600 francs(£l44). 7. To "Lo Travail" Aiisocmtkm of Working Painters, 3,200 francs (£128). S. To tho Fratoinul Union of Carpontors, 2,000 francs (£SO). 9. To tho Co-oporativo Association of Stonecutters, 750 francs (£3O). All the societies except two have tuade a good profit off their advances, and have accumulated some capital of their own. The first-mentioned society j has now a capital amounting to' ar)d holds contracts repre-; senting ; the second society, with a membership of 185, possesses a [ working capital of ,£6,387. The Association of Working Painters has a still larger accumulated fund, but its director recently retired from the Union, and commenced working an his own account in opposition '£0 the Society. Although these societies have paid back the principal of their advances with ,£l2O interest, the Stonecutters and Carpenters, who represent the unsuccessful unions, and whose finances have got into a muddle, are defaulters to the extent, of ,£2BO. If similar losses continue, the capital fund left by M. Rampal, •which only amounts to some ,£4,000, will gradually be dissipated. The profit made by seven of the unions, however, provos what may be done by united labour under good management, although everyone who has been associated in the working of such societies is aware of the difficulty of obtaining permanent union and obedience to the necessary orders of the manager or board of direction. Mr J. Maudsley, of the Operative Cotton-Spinners' Association, in a paper read before the Industrial Remuneration Conference iin London in February, said: —

" Productive co-oporatiou, in the proaont stato of society, fails to satisfy oil tho partioa concerned. In industries depending largoly for thoir prosperity on exportation of thoir products, with their corresponding fluctuations in profits, it is alm'*-C certain it wilt (as it has repeatedly do&o in the past) break down. Tho experiment has boon tried in tho cotton trade, and so long as the operatives roceivod tho current wages of tho district, supplemented by an occasional bonus, matters wont umoothly along ; but •when profits vanished, and they wero asked to assist in making up tho losses from thoir ■wages, thoy doclined."

This assertion is, we think, rather too sweeping, as the balance-sheets of various co-operative manufactories in England prove. At the same time, its force must be recognised, and it is only by facing the difficulty and watching the results of kindred experiments elsewhere that experience can be gained and failure averted. The French trades union associations! described above are types of a new and very remarkable industrial movement, and if their success should ba permanent and marked, they will, we have little doubt, give a new bent to trades unionism in other countries. At the same time, it is easy to see how trade reverses, the defection of prominent managers who can do better for themselves, and other causes, may bring upon the seven the disasters which have so quickly destroyed the two, with an irreparable loss to the capital fund so benevolently bequeathed.