170 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



liable to dismissal, without a voice in the management 

 and with interests distinct from those of their employers. 

 Hence we have had friction, the formation of a special trade 

 union, and even strikes. The growing idea is that " commerce 

 and industry and exchange " are to be taken over by the 

 consumers, as a collective community, all intermediate 

 profits being eliminated, and the goods passing from the 

 producer straight, and at little more than cost price, to 

 the consumer. When the Chairman of a recent Co-operative 

 Congress spoke of the co-operative aim being " supremacy," 

 he did not mean that the three million British Co-operators 

 now enrolled should rule the commerce and industry of 

 the entire Nation, as William of Hohenzollern proposed to 

 rule the world, but that the consumers of the Nation should 

 all co-operate in order so to dominate production and 

 distribution and so get rid of what foreigners call the un- 

 productive " agio." There is much talk of abolishing 

 " Capitalism." However, so long as co-operative societies 

 make high dividends, which necessarily raise the store price 

 of goods, so as to exclude the poor — for whom Co-operation 

 was primarily intended, as the Women's Guild has rightly 

 again and again called to remembrance at Sunderland and 

 in one or two other places — and practically tell the working 

 man that his road to emancipation lies, not across the 

 raising of the status of Labour, by recognition of the 

 labourer as a co-employer, but across the accumulation of 

 capital in the society's deposit department, so long the 

 boast of " abolishing Capitalism " cannot seriously be 

 upheld. Distributive Co-operation by itself may with 

 its " dividends " help to emancipate the labourer, but 

 that will be by enabling him to turn away from Labour to 

 some other occupation and make of him what specifically 

 distributive co-operators are pleased to call, rather reproach- 

 fully, an " individualist." It is self-employment which 

 emancipates Labour. 



The farmer also buys, however his buying is mainly 

 for business purposes, as a means to production. His 

 main aim in Co-operation is, after having purchased his 

 raw material cheaply, to sell his finished material to best 



