365 



relation of the state to the cooperative movement. The uncom- 

 promising opponent of State assistance in any form will find no 

 support in these monographs. There is no country which does 

 not accord more than mere legislative recognition to the co- 

 operative idea. The aid is rendered variously in diff*erent 

 states, in the form of legal privileges, assistance in propaganda, 

 financial facilities, direct subvention and otherwise. One may 

 hold that the State aid is often unnecessarily and sometimes in- 

 judiciously given. One could prove that where the movement is 

 strongest dependence on the state is lightest. Yet on the other 

 hand it is not to be denied that the help of government has been 

 of great service in most countries and especially to certain 

 branches of cooperative work, and that but for that help coopera- 

 tion would not be the vigorous growth that it is today. State, 

 aid is not a principle to be condemned or approved in the ab- 

 stract. There is a time to give and a time to withhold aid. Like 

 every other principle it is relative, and must be applied with direct 

 reference to the circumstances of each country and people and 

 the requirements of each form of cooperative activity. 



STATE AID WHERE POSSIBLE. 



But the writers of these monographs hold no brief for State 

 aid. Their straightforward narrative ought to convince the 

 straightest theorist that there are circumstances in which such 

 assistance is permissible and even advisable, and that it is a mat- 

 ter on which a man may not dogmatize. But no attempt is made 

 to uphold State aid as a good thing in itself. On the contrary, 

 the inference everywhere is that a completely self-reliant move- 

 ment is the ideal, and that Government assistance is only a means 

 to that end — it can never be a substitute for popular inspiration 

 and direction. The essential thing to notice is that in Europe 

 the initial impulse has invariably come from the people. The co- 

 operative idea was evolved to meet changing economic conditions 

 by those who actually felt tfie pressure of them. Only when that 

 idea had been put to the test of practical working and its efficacy 

 proved did the State come forward with its assistance, an assist- 

 ance which was not always gratefully received. First and above 

 all things the movement in Europe is a self-conscious and popu- 

 lar one, deriving its impetus from private enterprise and depend- 

 ent upon its appeal to the people's sense of interest. 



UNIQUE POSITION IN INDIA. 



It is here that the Indian movement occupies a position by it- 

 self. The w^riter of the monograph on India sums up the pro- 

 gress made as "an illustration of State aid effectively adminis- 

 tered rather than of organized self-help." We reversed the nor- 

 mal process by beginning at the top. Government not only intro- 



