The Grey River Argus SATURDAY, November 27, 1943. WORKERS CO-OPERATIVES.

Grey River Argus, 27 November 1943, Page 4

The Grey River Argus SATURDAY, November 27, 1943. WORKERS CO-OPERATIVES.

Among problems which will have to be faced after the war, such as that of employment, none may prove more persistent than those arising from the enormous extension of State enterprise in the sphere of production. In Australia, for instance, there is likely to be a referendum as to whether the factories on which one hundred and fifty millions of public money has been laid out should remain under government operation for peace-time production, or not. The United States has also to decide to what extent government enterprises shall continue after the war, including that in the oversea oil industry. The tendency- in Britain may be for the return of industry now more .or less directed for war purposes by the State to private enterprise, but the Labour Movement is certain to agitate for coal, if not also transport and perhaps other industry to be made public property. Tn New Zealand the line of demarcation between public and private enterprise _ has during war-time been either shifted or somewhat obliterated; but the readjustment should not prove difficult. It is . certain, however, that post-war economy will tend to check markedly the domination of social, industrial

find agricultural life by private finance capitalists, especially those controllers of credit who, while trustees for others, can use vast powers from their technical vantage points.' It is conceivable, indeed, that eventually workers will feel that they ought themselves to possess greater controlling powers, and therefore security, instead of looking for security to State domination, or in the final analysis, control of social and economic life permanently by politicians. Industrial unionism may hitherto have tended in .that direction, but wartime responsibility ought to have enlarged the experience of workers generally in a degree sufficient to open their eyes to their own capacity. The death just Recorded in a London cable of Sir Thomas Allen, one of the great est men in Britain’s co-operative movement, is a reminder of the wonderful development of workers’ enterprise in the trading sphere. Unfortunately there has yet been no counterpart in the Dominions, although there is progress in Canada in that direction. In many countries, including our own, farmers have certainly demonstrated the potentialities of co-operation, not merely in trading, nor on the consumer’s behalf, but also in production. Certainly farmers as a class are owners of means of production, whereas wage earners as a class are not, except where they may set up stores whereby to supply themselves with certain commodities, comparatively few of which they produce themselves. In Britain these ventures have attained enormous dimensions, but apart from executives, especially leaders like the late Sir Thomas Allen, individual shareholders figure in the picture chiefly as consumers. The next step in the field of co-operation must be that whereby workers shall figure also as producers. Once the practice were definitely established, producer co-operatives, while they might federate for common advantage, need not constitute numerically very large units. But co-operation appears to offer workers greater scope for security and responsibility than de pendence entirely on enterprise of a purely State or bureaucratic character. Modern individual jand production technique may dictate collective action, but workers ought to prove capable of jointly carrying on their own undertakings, without relying on others. Though co-operation may not just now be to the fore in post-war planning, it deserves to be, and insofar as organised Labour looks to the State .it should study the great possibilities in this direction.