CO-OPERATION FOR SALE OF FARM PRODUCE. 117 



a heavy loss, amounting in the aggregate to £1,851. Con- 

 sequently no bonuses have been divided. 



In the cases just referred to, the men to a certain extent 

 manage the farm, though in each case there was a manager 

 appointed by the landlord. A more common form of 

 co-operative production is the establishment of a system 

 of profit-sharing among the labourers, who, however, have 

 no share in the management ; and the experiments of 

 Earl Grey and Lord Wantage in this direction are well 

 known. Lord Grey's interesting scheme was described 

 by himself in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society, and again in Mr. Wilson Fox's Report on the 

 Glendale district of Northumberland. It is, of course, 

 only fair to remember that recent years have been 

 particularly unfavourable for making experiments in 

 farm management, but it cannot be said that the attempts 

 at co-operative production have been marked by very 

 great success financially. 



Passing on to the second branch of the subject, viz., 

 co-operative purchase, it may be noted that the practica- 

 bility and desirability of schemes by which consumers of 

 particular commodities combine for the purpose of buying 

 in large quantities, and thus saving the retailers' profits, 

 are well recognised. The great movement which started 

 in 1844 with the Rochdale pioneers is now widespread 

 throughout the kingdom. There were at the end of 1894 

 in the United Kingdom 1,674 societies, with a total mem- 

 bership of 1,343,518, a capital of £15,006,663, and a turn- 

 over of £49,985,065. This is a remarkable result in fifty 

 years. I should add that of the 1,674 societies 1,484 are 

 described as " distributive," that is ordinary stores, in 

 which the customers share the profits ; 175 are " pro- 

 ductive," 12 are called " supply associations," and there 

 are English and Scottish wholesale associations. 



I need hardly refer to the success of the great co-opera- 

 tive stores of the metropolis. The late Mr. H. M. Jenkins 

 in a paper read before the Farmers' Club in February, 



