A New Form of Co-operative Industry.

Evening Star, Issue 7646, 23 June 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

A New Form of Co-operative Industry.

In Burnley a new form of industrial co-operation has been recently inaugurated and is making rapid headway in that town ; and the associations constituted, as described below, are styled “Self-help Manufacturing Societies,” Every workman or workwoman employed at these places must undertake to become the holder of a share in the concern worth at least L 5, and until that amount is paid up by weekly instalments of half-a-crown or more, they are allowed to work, as it were, on sufferance only, and are not admitted to share in any profit or premium which the operations of the manufactory may permit of. The scheme is even more ambitious than this, at least in some of the concerns where it is in operation; for the aim is that each weaver may become, by his or her weekly savings, the owner of the loom or looms to which he or she attends. That done, the weaver, although bound to obey rules common to all, and to turn out not less than a given quantity of work of a special quality per loom, will bo in fact his or her own employer. When the working expenses are deducted and allowance made for depreciation of machinery, and provision made for the “ rainy day,” what is left, after paying the average wages of the district, will be divided among the proprietorial workers in proportion to their individual investments, and therefore in proportion to the number of looms each may work. This is only a modification of the co-operative principle, but it is one that brings it within the power of any operative to become the owner of the looms from which the living is earned, and which, moreover, provides an incentive to that end. On the face of it, a great weaving shed, carried on upon the principles named, ought to be far less liable to strikes and lock-outs than a similar establishment owned by a private person,