CO-OPERATION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11509, 4 October 1915, Page 4

CO-OPERATION.

FUTURE POLICY IN ENGLAND. In the course of ;i paper on "The P'lit'ir;' PoJ.cy of Co-operation, National ; ■: t:tl liUeni:;t:on;tl." which lio read baton* ilio co-operative congress* at Leicester recently. Aneurin "William, M.P., «niu that personalty lie believed in polij tieal action for many so.-anl reforms, I bat there were objections to co-operat-ors being in idliancc with any political pprty. Their policy must be to spread distributive co-operation over the whole country. Co-operative societies were already great employers of labour, and in wage conditions and hours fiiey b« not only eyual to the best competitive employers, but, as far as |>cssible ; , they should set rhe pace. He oelieveu' that the future policy of cooporativn societies towards labour would be moro and naore a policy of co-partncrediip. it should bo part of their policy to develop eo-operativo credit societies and co-operative agricultural societies of all kinds on the liners which had achieved such gigantic success in other countries. _ Then, as regarded co-oper-ative housing, there was much that the State and the municipality should; do for housing, but it should not all be left to them. There was much that could best be done by voluntary association. The well paid artisans could provide houses for themselves by association better than any one could do. fto-operative housing was the next greatest field for the development of their movement and for the investment of hundred's of millions of working class capital, but if the societies were to have a great policy of housing they must- judiciously make themselves own- ( ers of land. Nor was it only for housing that they should do that. The land was tao great source of raw materials. and the chain of co-operation would bo completed .in proportion as co-operators made themselves owners of the sources of raw materials.