CO-OPERATION 141 



stations, and so on. Within the last few years we ourselves have 

 made some headway with the use of electricity for agricultural 

 purposes, mainly in the north, going so far as even to milk cows by 

 electricity — which is not altogether in harmony with the " clean '' 

 milk policy. For milking machines — none of which have thus far 

 proved anything like perfect — with their several parts difficult to 

 clean thoroughly, on account of the joints and elbows, are likely to 

 prove rather prolific generators of bacteria. Whatever we may have 

 done, however, we want to do a great deal more. And as rural 

 communities come to grow up and to fill with inmates, it may be 

 hoped that we shall see a rapid development. 



Another task — now generally recognised as being most urgent — 

 in the performance of which co-operation may be profitably turned 

 to account is that of providing the rural population with the much- 

 wanted dwellings. If there are to be more busy bees, there will of 

 necessity have to be a corresponding number of hives. Statesmen 

 and Government are racking their brains with pondering how to 

 devise schemes for meeting this acknowledged want. Co-operation 

 could not accomplish all that is actually called for under this head, 

 and even co-operation could do nothing to speak of without funds 

 being poured into its till by either capitalists or the community. 

 The capital outlay is too large and requires to be tied up for too long. 

 But, with some capital supplied to it from outside, co-operation may 

 be made to accomplish not a little — as it has in fact done elsewhere. 

 The most instructive example of such action is to be found, once 

 more, in Germany, where the earliest adoption of those working 

 men's insurance schemes, which have now become general, above all 

 the Old Age Pensions Funds, resulting in the piling up of millions of 

 money collected with railway speed, provided ample cash to work 

 with. Co-operative unions (more particularly that of the Schulze 

 Delitzsch societies) took up the work — above all things in rural 

 districts, in which up to that time it had been found to present the 

 most serious difficulties — difficulties surviving even now. Good 

 headway has, however, been made — with the use of old age pensions 

 money willingly rendered available at a low rate of interest, such 

 as in this country the savings banks, storing up working men's nest- 

 eggs, might well provide. And the administrators of Old Age 

 Pension Funds have found that they can trust co-operative building 

 societies with advances to a much larger extent than other bodies, 

 going up to the high point of 97 per cent, of the value of the building 

 to be erected. There appear to have been no losses to speak of, if 

 any at all. But dearer money, coming with the preparations for the 



