SOME ECONOMIC INTERESTS 133 



under these favorable conditions, the close contact and associa- 

 tion with the larger world which cooperation always assures, all 

 result in intellectual development and help to increase the in- 

 telligence and add to the fund of general information of the co- 

 operators. 



It has been observed both in country and in city that coopera- 

 tion has a most marked effect on the promotion of thrift. The 

 cooperative society provides the farmer with the means of pur- 

 suing productive enterprises and consequently he engages in 

 them. He gets out of debt and as a rule begins to save. In the 

 urban movement it is often the case that the hard drinking la- 

 borer who is head of a wretched family is induced to trade with 

 the cooperative society and finds in a few months that he has 

 money to his credit drawing interest. It is likely that he has 

 never had in his possession money enough to supply his family 

 with food for a week in advance. But his accumulated savings 

 give him hope and he is encouraged to save further. Many a 

 man of this sort, whose original investment had been only a 

 dollar and twenty-five cents, eventually has acquired as much 

 as five hundred dollars. The condition of his family of course 

 becomes greatly improved. 



When a man begins to save, his money, instead of going into 

 the dram shop, is invested in the cooperative institution. In the 

 country as well as in the city the wastefulness and the evil effects 

 of alcoholic intemperance become recognized and the influence 

 of the cooperative society is thrown against it. In Dungloe, 

 Ireland, the cooperative store is the only one in the village 

 which does not sell spirituous liquors, though it is doing a 

 larger business than any other drug store. In another place 

 where the people wished to form a cooperative society and run 

 a store for household goods the Irish Agricultural Organization 

 Society refused assistance because the people who desired to co- 

 operate thought it necessary to sell whiskey in order to hold 

 their business in competition with the other stores, all of which 

 engaged in the liquor traffic. In Austria and Hungary the 

 priests are the more active in the promotion of the cooperative 

 movement because the members spend their evenings in the co- 

 operative society rooms instead of in the public houses. In Bel- 

 gium the influence of the cooperative societies is strongly used 



