NOTES ON CO-OPERATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2059, 10 August 1893, Page 35

NOTES ON CO-OPERATION.

By Pater. At Whitsuntide the annual congress of the Home co-operative societies took place at Bristol, and as the numbers of the Co-operative News' containing a pretty full account of the proceedings are to hand I fulfil my promise to a co-operator, and give a few statistics culled from their pages. The progress of many societies has during the past year received a severe check through the dislocation of the cotton trade and the depression of trade generally in the North of England and tbe South of Scotland, the parts where co-operation i 3 most firmly rooted. The effects show themselves not on the number of societies and their membership—these are increasing — but on the turnover on the) main necessaries of life less money has been circulated. Apart from this, however, allowance must be made for the lower prices obtained for the necessaries of life during the year, so that a smaller turnover in, say, tea, flour, and sugar does not necessarily mean a smaller volume of trade. In the aggregate, however, there is an increase, in spite of prevailing disadvantages. The number of the News for May 27 contains the statistics of 1891 and 1892 for comparison, but I shall confine myself to the latter, and will give the nearest round figures. The annual turnover of the distributive societies is £50,000,000 (roughly a million a week) ; the profits returned to members, £5,000,000 ; the societies have invested in Manchester Canal shares, &c, £7,000,000 ; the membership of the 1655 societies is given as 1,250,000, representing mostly heads of families, and therefore about one-sixth the population of Great Britain. These figures relate exclusively to the distributive co-operatives. Distributive co-operation, if efficiently carried out on true .principles, calls forth selfreliance, thrift, and manly, sturdy independence ; but productive co-operation calls forth in the highest degree these qualities, and tbe faculty of organising and supervising and of creating a market for unadulterated commodities produced under conditions the most favourable to labour, so that progress in this direction is slower and has not met with such unqualified success, except in the manufacture of boots, biscuits, bread, sweets, soap, flour, and other manufactured goods not requiring a very special knowledge and changing little in demand. It will be a long time, for instance, before co-operative production can be carried on successfully in the manufacture of goods for which there is a fickle demand, such as materials for ladies' fashions, &o. Cooperators have had many failures in producing, but these failures have brought out the very qualities that help to make the man, and successes have been such as to encourage an advance all along the line. A great number of the societies are, as I havegaid in previous notes, federated for buying, so that the smaller shops may command as good terms as the larger ones. During the year the wholesale society has turned over in this way £13,000,000. In addition it controls many of the co-operative manufacturing works. During the past year the English co-operative manufactured nearly £800,000 and the Scottish over £250,000, with a very rapidly increasing trade. - The societies have started to do their own banking and insuring. During 1892 the banking business stood at over £31,000,000, and risks were accepted for £6,600,000 ; tbe income from premiums being £9000, and the payments during the year about £5000. There is a large reserve fund to work on in both cases. It is rather curious that co-operation is so largely confined to the south of Scotland and the north of England. This .fact largely discounts the statements often made that it is the large population that enables co-operation to be carried on so successfully at Home, for London and other large centres are almost without cooperation, while other cities and towns are saturated .with it. Going by countries this is even more noticeable. Forty-five per cent, of the heads of families in Durham are cooperators ; 40 per cent, in Northumberland ; 36 per cent, in Lancashire ; and 32 per cent, in Yorkshire. In many countries the percentage would have to be expressed by a fraction. It might interest some to know that wives ace now forming societies at Home to further co-operation, and at the same time household efficiency. In many cases tradesmen have been forced to grant concessions to workers through the pressure they have brought to bear. They have sought for shops worked under fair labour and other conditions, and having found them, have patronised them. As yet this movement is in its infancy. The Women's Guild includes 136 branches, with an aggregate membership of 6400— a11, of course, of the " superior " sex. With these short and rather crude notes I shall once more commend the co-operative movement to my readers. I had intended writing a few lines on the movement in New Zealand. Perhaps on Borne future occasion I shall do so, but I have already occupied more space than we can reasonably expect our editor to spare while Parliament is sitting, though — I suppose I am rather egotistic in saying so— l think that the digesting of the facts I have given will be of more ."practical uee than an equal quantum of nine-tenths of the Parliamentary reports.