APPENDIX. 



605 



have not been able to 'find late statistical information in regard to them or in 

 regard to the " peoples' banks," which are established in many countries of 

 Continental Europe, and in many cases almost exclusively for the benefit of 

 farmers. Cooperative creameries seem to succeed better in Denmark than any- 

 where else, and there are some in Ireland. In England there is little or no co- 

 operation among farmers, as we usually think of them in the United States, but 

 there is more or less systematic efturt to promote organization of small societies 

 of farm laborers for the rental or purchase of land to be farmed cooperatively. 

 This is favored by some of the cooperative stores as a means of employment 

 of their surplus capital, to be used in this manner in aid of the farm laborers. 

 Quite a number of such societies have been formed, but thus far have usually 

 been unsuccessful, except when the cooperative store supplying the capital 

 afforded a home market for the product of the farm. The British cooperators, 

 however, expect to solve the problem of cooperation among farmers for 

 productive purposes. ' 



//. COOPERATION AMONG OTHERS THAN FARMERS. 



Whatever the form which the struggle for existence may- take with indi- 

 viduals, they invariably turn, whenever it becomes severe, to the idea of 

 cooperation. It is an instinct pervading all nature, whose exercise is recognized 

 by social philosophers as the panacea for all curable ills of society. We are 

 not all philosophers, however, and sometimes our views of cooperation, being 

 confined to the bounds of our immediate necessities, are very narrow. The 

 ant's conception of cooperation may be simply of help enough to carry off a 

 dead beetle. The Californian farmer thinks of cooperation as a device to 

 enable him to get higher prices for his wheat at Liverpool. The British farmer 

 thinks of it as a means for preventing his Californian competitor from selling 

 in Liverpool at all, while the British artisan thinks of it as a means of getting 

 cheap bread. I am unable to see any difference between the principle which 

 leads Tim and Mike to join, under the persuasion of a benevolent society, in a 

 cooperative dairy in Ireland, and that which moves Smith and Jones, under 

 the persuasion of a shrewd promoter, to join in buying Mr. Carnegie's steel 

 plants for six hundred millions of dollars. Of course there is a great difference 

 between the motives which inspire the society in the one case, and the pro- 

 moters in the other, but as for Tim and Mike and Smith and Jones they all 

 alike wish to increase their incomes. Of course, also, my own feelings towards 

 the two enterprises are very dillerent. I earnestly desire that Tim and Mike 

 may succeed, because they are not now receiving proper reward for their own 

 hard labor, while I shall be quite content to see Smith and Jones lose their 

 money because they are seeking, by cooperation, to obtain what other people 

 must work to pay for. And I wish Tim and Mike well none the less because 

 I know that if ever they find themselves strong enough they will ruthlessly 

 make me pay $10 a pound for my butter or go without it. As I think, hO 

 thinks society, which almost unanimously favors the association of the weak, 

 while opposing that of those who are already strong. The one it calls ' ' coopera- 

 tion " while the other is termed a "combine." It seems to me that this 

 instinctive feeling in all of us is an expression of sound, logical common sense, 



