SOCIALIST GRIP

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 26, 30 July 1927, Page 9

SOCIALIST GRIP

CO-OPERATIVE STORES

A NEW MILCH COW

DISILLUSION PREDICTED

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 15th June. Some 5,000,000 members of the Cooperative Movement, who originally banded themselves together in a nonpolitical trading organisation in whose profits they each shared, have allowed themselves definitely to be handed over to the Socialist Party by the votes which their delegates gave at. tho congress at Cheltenham.'

By this vote the Co-operative Movement loses all separate identity as a political force. It is henceforth absorbed m the Socialist Party. One delegate said bitterly that he supposed beiore long Mr. Tom Mann or someone Jike him would be presiding over the Co-operative Congress. •_ The.-capital owned by the co-operators is #100,000,000 (on the profits from -IWlHeh no income tax is paid), and one speaker declared that the Socialists would have taken no interest in the Co-operative Movement if it had not open a prosperous concern. Co-operators, whose savings may thus be used to assist extreme political propaganda, will find that the decisior .38 mainly the result of their own apathy. -The case of Liverpool was quoted, where the delegates were bound to support the motion by a vote of only 500 out of 80,000 members, ana in another district it was only 82 members out of 47,000 who troubled to vote. The decision was only reached after scenes of excitement that frequently .developed into uproar, before which the chairman was powerless. The Cheltenham town hall was packed to capacity with 2000 delegates. -Elderly men were in the majority, but youngsters set the pace. They began by demanding "The Red Flag" and that other hymn of class hate, "The International,'.' when friendly choruses were being sung before the debate opened. ? I 8*!*? in the face of delegates who "?£ &f fc,f° me from Placing a wreath on the war memorial. The band did not respond to their demands further than to play, the "March of the Men of Harlech." POLITICAL CONTROL. _ The Communist Party, in an open letter to delegates,-signed itself "Yours fraternally," and the general correctness of this assumption was shown by * o „!?» resolutio» passed—a majority of 3,292,000 to 995,000 in favour of the introduction of a special resolution denouncing the break with the Bolsheviks In future direct representation of co-operators in Parliament ana on local governing bodies will be obtainable only with the approval of the Socialists. iNone but Socialist candidates can be selected, and- a part of the trading ■profits of all societies, which should be available for their members, will bo devoted to the assistance of Socialism -No anti-Socialist Co-operator will have any political rights in the movePart eXcept t0 suOT°rt the Socialist Incidentally, by handing itself over to the Socialist Party the Co-operative Movement has committed itself to support of principles definitely antagonistic to its own interests, for the Socialists believe not only in nationalisation but also in the municipalisation of essential services. _-At. a moment, therefore, when the Socialists are complaining bitterly because, uuder the Trade Disputes Bill, they will no longer be able to extract nnancial support from anti-Socialist trade unionists, they have found a magnificent substitute in a compulsory levy on co-operators. The trade union cow has been milked almost dry, but the Cooperative Movement cow is rich in milk and the Socialists are jubilant over the success of their manoeuvre. The position is a peculiar one, for it will be found that a gerat many of the presidents of co-operative societies are business men who have no sympathy with Socialism and are entirely against any politics in their society. They intend to oppose the scheme, oven if it means a break with the Co-operative Union. The Cheltenham Congress still leaves it open to the local associations to refuse affiliation with the Labour Party. It'seems highly probable that many of these district branches will ducline to follow the lead of their central executive. A BAD MARRIAGE. fc,^"^ hisJ >roposed fiance," says the f*DaUy Telegraph," "is as certain Ho jend in the disillusionment of the sincere Co-operator as those other ill-fatea marriages where the hope of happiness depends entirely upon the reformation 61 the predominant partner. Nationalisers, like all rakes, are difficult to convert. There can be no true union between the principle of Co-operatioD honestly held, and that of Nationalisation. "If it be said that Nationalisation is for ever changing its definition, that the missionary fervour of Co-operation has waned, and that the'bulk of Cooperators are only so because they 'deal with the Co-Op., ' that only means that the compelling motive behind those who fcavo intrigued to bring about this alliance is nine-tenths political. Here, indeed, we touch the open secret of this resolution. This alliance has direct political ends in view, both for normal and abnormal times. In ordinary times the idea is that Co-operators and tho Labour Party shall take tho field together, join in the same demonstrations, vote for the same candidates, pull the same strings, share the same spoils, and build in perorations the same Jerusalem. There is to be no distinction; tho Trojan will sport the Tyriau colours. But always the grand idea in the background is that the Co-operatora shall act as the commissariat of tho Labour Party in time of grave industrial dispute. They have the shops; i*"ey. have the stocks; they have the distributing agencies; they have also a proportion of the mills and factories which produce what they sell. The Cooperators are to be the Service Corps of, the Labour Party, and they arc to Stand at tho disposition of the Genera! Council of the Trades Union Congress. 'The deep, underlying purpose of this proposed agreement is to rope the Cooperative Union into the Labour Party toy ties from which it can never escape, ana to use it as a weapon against • Capitalism. Socialism in Russia has Killed the great Co-operative Movement in that country. Tho forms remain; the freedom has gone. It was the one bright spot in Russian industrial life; the foul tyranny has taken the soul out of it." JUBILATION AND DOUBT. "The Co-operative Movement is .a great distributing, manufacturing, and productive organisation. It is now definitely to be linked with a party trhich may one day form a majority Government of this country. Is it seriously contended," asks the "Daily Express," "that in such a case a Government which to some extent depends for its party funds on a trading concern is not going to bo influenced", however unintentionally, by considerations of what is good for that trading concern as distinct from others? The Socialists are jubilant over the Cheltenham resolution. The non-Socialist Cooperators may well be more than a lit,tl« dubious." "When once Co-operators begin to Jiise their organisation for political pur-

poses, which at the least include the entire supersession of the present economic order by another, of which no one knows anything except that whenever it has been tried it has failed, they will infallibly become aware of an uncomfortable change," says the "Morning Post." "If they desire to understand in what the change will consist, they have only to study the balance-sheets of the trade unions under political control. The agreement between the Cooperative Union and the National Executive of tho Labour Party, which was ratified yesterday, provides for the prosecution of 'joint campaigns on special subjects or during elections.' AYe imagine that these ominou3 words will arouse considerable misgivings among co-operators throughout the country, as well they may."