CO-OPERATION 123 



observed, proved distinctly successful in judicious combination of 

 the two services of distribution and insurance interlocked into one 

 another. One telling proof of this is the result attained by the 

 Co-operative Wholesale Society, which, after taking over the busi- 

 ness of the first independent Co-operative Insurance Society — an 

 exceedingly well-managed concern — managed to increase its receipt 

 from premiums from £100,000 to £903,000 in very little time. And 

 no doubt that income will go up still higher. The combination of the 

 two services has enabled the Insurance Society to provide for life 

 insurance at the almost incredibly low cost of only 5 per cent, of the 

 premium payment, which is a great boon to people with diminutive 

 incomes. Joint stock companies have, as observed, to allow for 

 25, and even 50 per cent, reduction, and even co-operative organisa- 

 tions, such as the German working men's insurance funds, have not 

 been able to bring the costs down below 10 per cent. 



Insurance against fire, hail and animal mortality and disease 

 cannot, indeed, be managed on the same economical lines. How- 

 ever, in one respect the advantages which co-operative insurance 

 can assure to itself in comparison with joint stock action must be 

 apparent. No matter what the risk to be insured against may be, 

 hail or fire, or animal mortality — but more particularly if it is the 

 last named — co-operation can be worked locally by committees of 

 co-insurers, who will, in their own interest, see that values are 

 correctly given and that every care is taken to avoid damage and 

 that, the damage being after all done, what value remains as salvage 

 will be turned to proper account. A trifling allowance out of pro- 

 ceeds to the local committee — acting as valuer and inspector — will 

 suffice to keep its members' zeal at a sufficiently high pitch. 



At this point we necessarily part company with industrial co- 

 operation. For industrial co-operators' ideas with regard to co- 

 operation are bounded by their own interests as consumers. Co- 

 operative production — for the producer's benefit — most of them 

 taboo as : ' individualist," while contentedly supporting non-co- 

 operative production by working for it as wage earners. Now it is 

 sheer nonsense to set down co-operative production of any sort, 

 whether industrial or agricultural, as " individualistic." The co- 

 operative producer, like the co-operative consumer, works for the 

 emancipation of his class, for its elevation from the rank of simple 

 wage-earners, subject to another man's will, to the position of 

 self-employers. The consumer judges that the money earned by 

 " dividend " upon distribution will effect the object proposed, to be 

 followed by the buying up or crowding out of capitalist productive 



