COOPERATION IN ENGLAND. ' 747 



pressing needs ; no such justification, however, does the London shop- 

 keeper hold that the people of wealth and title have when they desert 

 his counter for the Civil-Service stores. He regards his profits as 

 inalienable rights, and has at times published plaints on his losses of 

 business in the daily press, at once sordid and silly. The Civil-Ser- 

 vice Society has been imitated by several large associations among 

 the army and navy, the clergy and the Nonconformists, who derive 

 many noteworthy advantages from their cooperation. United, and 

 being able to give life and fire insurance companies large lines of 

 business without the usual expense of solicitation, members are en- 

 abled to take out policies in companies of standing at a discount. 

 Combination, too, has reduced the charges for legal and medical 

 advice, and whether in making his will, or having a tooth drawn, or 

 having the accouchement of his wife performed, the London cooper- 

 ator is better off than other men. 



Although the stores, as the cooperative warehouses are called, 

 transact but a very small fraction of the retail trade of London, they 

 are finding imitators so fast that an entire change in the methods of 

 doing business is being brought about. The old way of selling goods 

 on credit and charging in prices a percentage large enough to cover 

 the loss and expenses entailed by the system can not stand before the 

 economy of buying and selling for cash. Then the vast scale of the 

 business of the stores enables them to buy on the best terms directly 

 from producers and manufacturers, and the charges of rent, taxes, and 

 management, are proportionately much less than in small independent 

 concerns. The percentage of total expense to business transacted is 

 but 5 on an average for all the British societies, and is perhaps some- 

 what less in the London stores. Their business is rendered in a large 

 measure uniform by being maintained by a known circle of customers 

 with wants of a fairly calculable character ; and large sums are saved 

 by premises not being needed on a street of high rents for chance cus- 

 tom's sake ; and the stores do not require to expend, when once- estab- 

 lished, anything for advertisements or other solicitation. The chief 

 retail streets of London contain frequent announcements of " Coop- 

 erative prices," " Discounts for cash," and " Discounts increasing 

 with the extent of a purchase " all evidencing attempts to employ 

 the economical features of cooperation by firms competing with the 

 stores. 



No cooperator, however sanguine, believes that the stores will 

 eventually supersede all retail shops. Taste and skill will always 

 secure independence, and a better reward than falls to the lot of those 

 who supply in an ordinary unexcellent way the general wants of their 

 customers. An artistic cabinet-maker or upholsterer, as well as a really 

 good tailor or shoemaker, will never need to offer discounts to retain 

 business ; but all the many things which one factory can turn out as 

 well as another, or one importer can buy with as much facility as his 



