THE NEW PRINCIPLE OF INDUSTRY. 



523 



senes' ; despotic, like tlie Peruvians' and Jesuits' ; 

 polygamist, like the Mormons' ; material, like Mr. 

 Owen's. Some recommended celibacy, as the 

 Essenes ; some enforce it, as the Shakers ; some, 

 like the Owenites, relax the marriage tie ; l some, 

 like the Harmonists, control it ; some, like the 

 Moravians, hold it indissoluble ; some would di- 

 vide the wealth of the society equally among all 

 the members ; some, as Fourier, unequally. But 

 one great idea pervades them all — community of 

 property, moro or less complete, and unreserved 

 common labor for the common good." 9 



Both in England and France, the fundamental 

 idea of socialism we take to be that of a fraternal 

 union among men for industrial purposes, a work- 

 ing in common for the common good, in place of 

 the usual arrangement of laborers and capitalists, 

 employers and employed. 3 



When tbe Irish land bill was before the 

 House of Commons, May 16, 1870, Mr. Gathorne 

 Hardy said : " It was not wise to indorse by the 

 sanction of Parliament the principle that the 

 ownership of land was a better thing than the 

 occupation. He protested against the clause as 

 socialistic and communistic." When a politician 

 does not well know what to say against an adver- 

 sary's measures, he calls them " socialistic " — a 

 phrase which, to employ Mr. Grant Duff's happy 

 phrase, is a good " working bugbear." In for- 

 mer days, when a clerical disputant met with an 

 unmanageable argument, he said it was " athe- 

 istic," and then it was taken as answered. In 

 these days the perplexed politician, seeing no 

 answer to a principle pressed upon him, says it 

 is " communistic." He need give no reasons : 

 the " working bugbear" clears the field of adver- 

 saries, or prevents them being listened to. One 

 thing may be taken as true, that the English, 

 whether poor or rich, are not, as a body, thieves. 

 Now and then you find some in both classes who 

 have a predatory talent, which they do not hide 

 in a napkin. Statesmen may sleep in peace. The 

 working-men, as a rule, will never steal knowing- 

 ly, either by crow-bar or ballot-box, nor will they 

 be robbed if they know it. Of course, they may 

 be robbed without their knowing it, else neither 

 Tories nor Whigs had ruled them so long as 

 they have, and I think I have seen the Radical 

 hand with marks about it, as though it had been 

 in the people's pocket, doubtless in some moment 



1 This is an unpleasant way of putting it. All Mr. 

 Owen's disciples advocated was equal facility of di- 

 vorce for poor as for rich. 



a " Mistaken Aim of the Working Class," by W. R. 

 Greg, pp. 192, 193. 



3 Ibid., p. 231. 



of patriotic aberration. Nevertheless, let not the 

 honest statesman fear. The common-sense of 

 common men is against peculation, whether in 

 theory or practice, whether done on principle or 

 in error. 



The Cooperative Magazine of 1826 declared 

 happiness to be the grand pivot on which the 

 cooperative system turned. "Happiness" was 

 explained as the " full and vivid satisfaction of 

 the mind," as " content and uninjurious enjoy- 

 ment — that is, enjoyment not injurious either to 

 one's self or to any other." This, as the Ameri- 

 cans say, rather wants " grit." The mind slides 

 over it. A later advocate of some mark, Dr. 

 King, of Brighton, defined cooperation as " the 

 unknown object which the benevolent part of 

 mankind have always been in search of for tbe 

 improvement of their fellow-creatures." Plainly 

 the object of a definition is to make the thing in 

 question known, and we are not helped by being 

 told it is the " unknown." There is, however, 

 something dimly revealed in what he says of 

 " society," which he derived from the Latin 

 words sanus, sound or safe, and cieo, to call to- 

 gether, the meaning of which was declared to be, 

 to call together for safety. No doubt there is 

 sense in this. Persons do require to be called 

 together for safety, but what they are to do when 

 so called is not clearly defined. A writer in the 

 Cooperative Miscellany of 1830, signing himself 

 " One of the People," saw his way to a clearer 

 specification of the " unknown " thing. He ex- 

 claims, " What is cooperation some may inquire." 

 Certainly many did make the inquiry. The an- 

 swer he gives is this : " Cooperation in its fullest 

 sense is the opposite of competition ; instead of 

 competing and striving with each other to pro- 

 cure the necessaries of life, we make common 

 cause, we unite with each other, to procure the 

 same benefits." This is rather a traveling defini- 

 tion — it moves about a good deal, and has no 

 fixed destination. It does not disclose how the 

 " common cause " is made. A definition has 

 light in it as soon as it discloses what a thing is 

 not and names its contrary. We learn now that 

 cooperation is not competition, but is the op- 

 posite. This writer gives an explanation of the 

 method of procedure, which is the earliest de- 

 scription of a cooperative store which I can 

 trace. He says : " A plan has been proposed 

 whereby the working-class may combine to es- 

 tablish shops for the sale of provisions, and ac- 

 cumulate profits made by economy, which will 

 enable them to begin manufacturing and employ 

 their own members in self-supporting industry." 



