CO-OPERATIVE SETTLEMENTS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5714, 6 November 1896, Page 5 (Supplement)

CO-OPERATIVE SETTLEMENTS.

An earnest and well-considered attempt to find a solution of the unemployed problem was made by the Hon W. M. Bolt in the course of his address at the Art Gallery on Sunday. Like everybody else who gives the matter much consideration, Mr Bolt is anything but satisfied with, the present individualistic regime. As lie pointed out, the concentration of capital and machinery in the hands of the few tends to make the position of the masses one of increasing hardship, and the conclusion he draws is that if this concentration is continued the harsh separation of classes is likely to become greater than ever; in other words, that we may expect the unemployed difficulty to become more instead of less acute. It is a disgrace to New Zealand, Mr Bolt thinks, that men who have committed no crime should be unemployed in thousands. He recognises that the present Liberal Government has made some attempt to remove this particular stigma, but he .is altogether dissatisfied with the way it has gone about it. The village settlement scheme he denounces as a " relapse into barbarism." Everything that has yet been done has, in his opinion, only been in the direction of " shovelling back the sand," and the only project that promises a permanent solution of the difficulty is that of bringing cooperative settlements into existence. Mr Bolt explained at length the details of tliis expedient. Briefly, it is to make the workman combine the position of labourer and capitalist ; to give him a fair start out of the funds of the State, and allow him to make his own living out of the fruits of some industry carried on in co-operation with a number of his fellows. The scheme is, of course, not altogether new or original. It is merely an extension of the co-opera-tive principle long advocated by political economists, and first established in England by the Rochdale pioneers. The peculiarity of Mr Bolt's soliemeis that it is to include both agriculture and manufactures, and is to be carried out in villages specially formed for the purpose. The chief difficulty in the way is the economic one, and this ' Mr Bolt appears to have touched on rather airily in his remark that the "land, buildings and machinery" were to be supplied by the State. Obviously the time has not yet come when the public funds can be pledged to provide all the unfortunate of the country with sufficient capital to start them out in any particular industry, and until this can bo done ivo must remain .1 good deal short of tho realisation, of Mr folk's ideal.