fringe of the working class, and, as compared with consumers and with producers' coöperation, has little bearing upon the labor problem.

2. Development of Consumers' Coöperation: Although a number of sporadic experiments in distributive coöperation were made near the end of the eighteenth century, the first recorded case in 1794-these were practically only phases of charity. The first genuine cooperative movement in England began in 1824 and lasted until 1834 under the direct guidance of Robert Owen, from whom English coöperators drew their original inspiration. Robert Owen's ideal, however, was essentially communistic, and he expected from the application of the principle of coöperation a complete social transformation which should practically abolish competition. Among ardent coöperators this ideal is not yet extinct, but in practical application the elimination of profit on price has, in general, satisfied the aims of the distributive stores.

(a) The Rochdale System: The present extensive and stable system of consumers' coöperation in Great Britain originated with the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers, an association of twenty-eight Lancashire workingmen, each of whom contributed £1 to furnish the original capital. Robert Owen was the theoretical father of British cooperation, but these twenty-eight workingmen were the practical pioneers of the movement.

Though starting upon an extremely limited scale, this association met with steady and substantial success.

Within a year there were 74 members, and the capital had increased to £181. By 1854 there were 900, and the society had a capital of £7,172. At the same time, the scope of the business constantly broadened, new departments were added, and new branches started. In 1854 the original idea, which included the employment of members, was further carried out by the starting of a cotton-spinning mill, and other productive departments have been added from time to time.

Meanwhile, the Rochdale plan of coöperation was adopted in hundreds of other societies, and became the basis, not only of the strong coöperative movement of Great Britain, but of a large number of experiments in the United States and other countries. The United Kingdom, however, has always maintained its lead in consumers' coöperation, and had, in 1902, 1,624 societies with 1,915,885 members. A great part of the success of the system has been due to the fact that the direct and telling appeal is not to sentiment, but to the more permanent motives of material advantage. The qualities demanded are intellectual rather than moral, in the sense in which morality demands absolute personal sacrifice.

(b) The English and Scottish Wholesale Societies and Consumers' Coöperative Production: The English Wholesale Society was established in 1864 for the purpose of completing the independence of the retail stores, of furnishing supplies of undoubted purity, and of saving the profits of the wholesale trade. From the first this society was eminently successful, and it is now said to be

the largest mercantile establishment in the world.

The

headquarters are at Manchester, but branches are also maintained at other points, and about thirty resident buyers are kept in all parts of the world, while nine ships ply between England and Ireland and England and the Continent. In 1868 the Scottish Wholesale Society was started upon practically the same plan.

It has been considered best not to turn back the savings of profits from the wholesale societies to the retail stores, for this would either discourage thrift, or would leave them with a surplus which they could not profitably use. The accumulated profits of the wholesale trade have, consequently, been invested in many different varieties of productive enterprise, and thus the wholesale houses have become powerful competitors, not only of private producers, but of producers' coöperative societies. Many of the retail stores, moreover, manufacture goods for members upon a large scale, while in the independent Cooperative Baking Societies and Corn Mills production is carried on by associations of consumers and in their interests. In 1902, 776 societies established primarily for distribution reported that they employed 31,392 persons in production and that their annual sales of goods manufactured by themselves amounted to £10,361,648. It must be borne in mind that these figures do not represent true producers' coöperation, but merely production as carried on by consumers' societies. As a rule these societies do not even pay a profit sharing bonus to labor. The Scottish Wholesale Society, however, has for many

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years given a share in profits to its employees, and the employees' bonus, in both the distributive and the productive departments, is at the same rate as the dividend on members' purchases.

(c) Consumers' Coöperation in Other European Countries: Considerable progress in consumers' coöperation has been made in other European countries, and since 1895 annual International Coöperative Congresses have been held, with delegates from nearly every civilized nation of the world. France had, in 1901, 695 coöperative bakeries and 864 distributive associations, the membership of 700 of which was 325,865. In the same year there were, in the German Empire, 1,528 coöperative stores, and also 1,941 agricultural and 211 industrial supply associations. Holland had, in 1902, 131, and Switzerland in 1899, 344 coöperative stores, while in 1898 Denmark had 637, Italy 508 and Austria 714 distributive establishments of various kinds. In Belgium, the socialists have developed a highly successful system of distributive coöperation, which includes the Maison du Peuple, of Brussels, and the Vooruit of Ghent, which in 1900 had a membership of 7,000 families, and operated a large bakery, clothing and shoe stores, a coal yard, seven groceries and five pharmacies.

(d) History of the Movement in the United States: It is impossible to obtain adequate statistics concerning either consumers' or producers' coöperation in the United States, for there has never been any central organization which could exercise a cohesive force over

the movement. Moreover, very few, even of the consumers' societies, have had more than a brief existence, and many coöperative experiments have doubtless lived and died in obscurity, known only to a small circle of interested persons.

(1). The Union Stores: The first known attempt at distributive coöperation in the United States was made about 1844 by a Boston tailor, who started a so-called "dividing store" among the members of the New England Association of Mechanics and Workingmen. From this beginning sprang, in 1847, the Workingmen's Protective Union, later called the New England Protective Union. In October, 1852, 403 sub-divisions had been organized, and of these, 165 reported sales during the previous year amounting to $1,696,825.46.

In 1853, however, a split took place and the American Protective Union was started. For a time this organization had divisions in at least ten states, and at its annual convention in 1857 there were reported to be 350 divisions, mostly in New England. The aggregate capital in that year was $291,000, and the annual trade $2,000,000. Meanwhile, "the original or New England Protective Union, though seriously crippled by the schism in its ranks, had reports in 1856 from sixty-three divisions, with three thousand five hundred and eighty-four members, $130,912 capital, and a trade for the preceding year of $1,005,882.02."

The union stores sold at first only to stockholders, but

1 Bemis, History of Cooperation in the United States, p. 23.