CO-OPERATION.

Evening Star, Volume 8505, Issue 8505, 2 May 1891, Page 4

CO-OPERATION.

Those working men who desire to alter the social arrangements of this country so as to be able to enjoy the fruits of their labor, and those hide-bound economists who prate about the rights of capital and the law of supply and demand, will do well to give serious attention to the history of the Leicester Co-operative Boot and Shoe Manufacturing Society. This society is not a fine-drawn theory to be jeered at by the dunderheads of the Press and platforms as impracticable and Utopian. It is an established fact, a practical proof that workmen where resolute and astute may actually succeed in getting paid for their labor at something like its fair value, without the aid of any grasping money-lender or bloodsucking “ proprietor.” It is a practical exposure of the rapacity of the sweater and the manufacturer; and undeniable proof of the extent to which the working classes are robbed and swindled by their “employers” in the respectable walks of trade. The society was established three years ago. In the first quarter their trade amounted to only L7O, aud the net result was a loss of Lls. But last quarter their trade was over L 4,000, and the total trade reached L 19.000, showing a clear profit of L 1,450, after paying the hands wages above the current trade rates. The society now holds two three-storey warehouses, a large quantity of valuable machinery, and has a library and public meeting room attached to the works. In all, 150 hands are employed, and provision is made for increasing the number. As to the L 1,450 profit, a few details of its outlay will be significant enough to set the slaves of the sweater thinking. A sum of L 174 has been placed to the reserve fund; L 494 has been paid to the workers over and above their wages ; Ll4B has been paid to the officers and Committee; L6l towards a social and educational fund connected with the works; L 124 to a provident and pension fund; L 124 to dividend on capital, plus the usual 5 per cent., and L 246 has been paid out in bonuses to purchasers. So that by dispensing with the employer, these working shoemakers have got increased wages, a workshop and machinery, a library, an educational fund and insurance fund, a handsome sum to share amongst them, and, after competing with the sweater and the capitalist in the open market, have been able to hand back to their customers L 246 in bonuses. These are facts. There is nothing visionary and theoretical about these figures. Let our readers consider the following statements, made by a at the recent meeting of the Leicester Co-opera-tive Boot Manufacturing Society: Alluding specially to the work of the Leicester Society, he said they commenced with about L2OO, and in two and a-half years they had made L 1,450 profit as the result of individual energy, interest, zeal, and economy. They had made L2do into L2,ooo—perhaps the pace was greater than they could reasonably expect to continue—but if they only cqntinued the profit they were making now of 50 per cent, per annum, where would they be in thirty years’ time ? That society would be possessed of about 32$ millions of money. In the face of these facts, one of the stock falsehoods of capitalist advocates is bound to go by the board. Either this Leicester Association is phenomenally successful—in which case it proves that co-operation can beat individual enterprise; or else it is clear that the plausible story about manufacterers paying their hands more money than their wort; will fetch, and themselves living on the loss, is, to pat it plainly, a mean, despicable lie.— ‘ Sunday Chronicle. 1