CO-OPERATION 117 



alone. Here we have the dividing line, the watershed, so to speak, 

 separating our form of co-operation from the industrial, to which 

 separation it owes its own quite peculiar character. For agricul- 

 ture the consumer's cry of " Everything for the consumer " will not 

 do. Eventually, of course, the consumer will prove master. It is 

 the demand which settles the price. But we are still in the work- 

 shop, where the man who handles the implements of the trade is 

 king, not in the market, where, in ordinary times, the consumer 

 reigns. And co-operation is to help us in the making of things. 

 Effective organisation of sale will not make them either cheaper or 

 better, because it gives the maker no inducement to make them so. 

 We have the proof of this in the results of distributive societies' 

 farming. Unquestionably such " farming " is an excellent thing 

 for the society which carries it on. It procures for it the produce 

 to be sold cheap, of absolutely dependable quality, fresh from the 

 soil, and at the precise time when it is wanted for sale. It also 

 teaches a very valuable lesson in agriculture, as demonstrating the 

 benefit of a generous application of fertilisers, feeding-stuffs and 

 labour for the perfecting of high farming, considerably modifying 

 the accepted value of the theory about " diminishing returns." 

 However the evidence offered by trained agriculturists before the 

 latest Royal Commission makes it quite clear that, effort for effort, 

 and outlay for outlay, it does not yield as good results as does 

 correspondingly generous farming under the direction of skilled 

 agriculturists. Nor could it do so. Non omnia possumus omnes. 

 Lord Macaulay's well-known simile about piano makers and bakers 

 not being able to interchange parts applies here as in many other 

 cases. Farmers would do as badly as in the capacity of store 

 managers. A chacun son metier, et les vaches seront bien gardees. 



Let us give all the credit that is due to it to the distributive 

 movement ! It is one of our chief national assets. Our great Man- 

 chester Wholesale Society was admitted, in my hearing, by the very 

 experienced organiser of the visit of the "American Commission" 

 of 1913, the late David Lubin — himself a great trader — to be " the 

 thing coming nearest a miracle that I have seen." That branch of 

 our co-operative movement has, in truth, done wonders for our 

 artisan population, raising it in the scale not only of wealth, but 

 also of knowledge and culture, and moral and social status, to a sub- 

 stantially higher level. The bigness of the results is surprising. 

 According to the returns for the year 1919, the Co-operative Union 

 (which does not embrace actually all co-operation established, but 

 which is mainly distributive) comprised 4,038,755 members, grouped 



