561 INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



ing its immediate purpose, this also formed a centre of fed 

 eration a place in which the cooperative organization be 

 came integrated. And then, presently, was joined with it a 

 cooperative bank ; further facilitating transactions through 

 out the organization, and serving to integrate it still more 

 closely. 



Some other essential traits have to be named. The first is 

 that though for a time the business of the Rochdale store 

 (and presumably of other early stores) was carried on gratis 

 by the cooperators themselves, who undertook duties in 

 rotation, there arose, as the business grew, the need for 

 salaried officials. After the appointment of men who served 

 the cooperative body as wage-earners, there went the resolu 

 tion that none such should be members of the governing 

 body; and later came the resolution that none such should 

 vote in the election of the governing body. I3uly recogniz 

 ing these cardinal distinctions, let us now ask what is the 

 true nature of one of these so-called cooperative stores. 



To the middle-class imitations of them the name &quot; co 

 operative &quot; is obviously not appropriate. Having capitals 

 raised by shares on which interest is either paid or invested 

 for the benefit of the holders, and, though at first selling 

 only to shareholders, having fallen into the practice of 

 selling to non-shareholders and even to non-ticket-holders, 

 they are simply joint-stock distributing agencies. The pro 

 prietors, employing salaried buyers, clerks, and shopmen, 

 constitute a many-headed shopkeeper. How entirely with 

 out claim to the title &quot; cooperators &quot; they are, is manifest 

 on remembering that no shareholder is himself a worker 

 in the concern. The shareholders may be said to act to 

 gether but they cannot be said to work together. The 

 members of a West-end Club are just as properly to be called 

 cooperators. They unite for the better or cheaper fulfilment 

 of certain wants, as the civil servants and others unite for 

 the better or cheaper fulfilment of certain other wants. 



Though cooperative stores of the Rochdale type, not di- 



