The Star. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1896.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5690, 8 October 1896, Page 2

The Star. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1896.

The Labour Associations of Great Britain have been holding an exhibition of co-operativo products at the Crystal Palace, and, as was to be anticipated, the display proved to be of immense interest. An exhibition of that nature cannot fail to have a very material effect in further advancing and strengthening the co-operative movement. In every department success was demonstrated, and since "nothing succeeds like success," new triumphs are sure to be won. There was, for instance, a series of veiy fine photographs, illustrating the rise and progress of a purely co-operative business at Leicester, known as the Hosiery Manufacturing Society. It began operations with a hand-loom in the front room of a cottage, the rental of which was one shilling per week; while the last halfyear's balance-sheet showed that the turnover for the six months had amounted to no less a sum than .£21,810, the piofit whereon was £1618. - - - Tee recent visit of 'co-operative dele: gates- has made us- acquainted with some of the facts and figures, and enabled us to foipi some idea of the magnitude of the undertakings that have been entered into and carried on by working men. At the opening of the Crystal Palace Exhibition, Mr Hodgson Pratt, who is regarded as one of the chief apostles of co-operation, claimed that the present position was an unparalleled example of the power of wise organisation. There are, in all, seventeen hundred societies, with a.total membership of a million and a quarter, and with an annual trade amounting to five millions sterling. The speaker told how this form of association had enabled thousands of men to save who were never before able to accumulate anything for old age ; and they had done it without the least difficulty, many of them being enabled thereby to purchase their own dwellings from tho profits. Mr Pratt went on to regret tho deplorable relations that existed between the capitalist and the labourer, whose interests ought really to be identical. But he did more than to express regret. He pointed out ways in which a marriage between them, or a " co-partnership of industry," might be effected. In one of these ways, he said, great captains of industry were recommended to share profits with their employes, and to pay those profits in the shape of share capital, the holders of it having, of course, with the responsibility of capitalists a voice in th© controLand management. The other form of productive co-operation was that in which all the capital had been found by workmen banded together as Trade Unions or in other ways. Mr Pratt rightly claimed that the history ot the productive cooperative societies is full of interest ; that it is a history of success attained by faith in a great moral as well as a great economic principle, by a splendid struggle against prejudices, and in some cases against determined opposition. The speaker's peroration, which one would like to have heard delivered, had a fit ending : — " A great cause attracts great men, and makes them nobler by its interests. In no movement for bettering the world have I met men who havo so much impressed mo as being inspired by a great ideal, and ennobled through it, as in the co-operation revolution. It owed its success in the past, and it owes its growth in the present, to such men as these."