TRANSACTIONS OP THE SECTIONS. 



181 



the action of the first principle I have named, viz. by the effective industry of 

 the country — the capitalist and labourer working successfully together, and thereby 

 making an immense increase in the capital and in the labour fund : but I think 

 that all attempts to better the conditions of labour in the third way (that of the 

 labourer becoming capitalist) are most interesting, most hopeful ; and it seems to 

 be a special business of such a Section as this to watch the attempts to carry out 

 these experiments, and to tind out year by year how far they have been successful. 

 With regard to cooperation, just let me make one remark. There are two kinds 

 of cooperation, and if we attempt to consider it scientifically we must not mix them 

 up together. There is that fomi of cooperation in which the capitalist or em- 

 ployer pays the labourer — not altogether in wages, but by giving him a share of 

 the profits. I was very hopeful that by such means the relations in question might 

 be made better ; and I am still hopeful, but perhaps not quite so much so as I was, 

 because I see clearly two accompaniments of this. One is that we cannot, and 

 must not, expect tlie labourer to take both sides of the bargain. We_ must not 

 expect him to suffer loss, for sometimes there is loss. He cannot, if he is working 

 from week to week, unless he has himself become a capitalist by saying, do with- 

 out his daily and weekly wages. Therefore we have to pay him his share of the 

 profits while we cannot make him responsible for a share of any loss. He cannot, 

 then, be said to be a sharer in the profit and loss ; he is only a sharer in the profit. 

 Then, again, I think if this were generally done we should find that it would be 

 merely a mode of payment, though perhaps a more satisfactory mode ; but we might 

 again have disputes as to the slmre of the profits he ought to have. This does not 

 prevent us from watching these experiments with great care and anxiety, and with 

 great hope. Then tliere is the other mode of cooperation, which may be called co- 

 operation proper — that is to say, the cooperation in which labour is counted as 

 capital, and the labourer becomes a shareholder, and, putting in some little savings 

 also, is an actual sharer in the enterprise. Allusion has been made in our discus- 

 sions to the growth of this kind of cooperation in this district. We know it verj' 

 well in Bradford, and especially in the neighbouring towns. We have seen, for 

 instance, the enormous and most satisfactory success of the Rochdale Cooperative 

 Store. It is more difficult to apply this principle to production ; but I am most 

 anxious to see the experiments in that direction scientifically observed. I am 

 told, though I do not know whether the statement is altogether borne out, that 

 cooperative mills have been tried, and, to a great extent, have succeeded in Lan- 

 cashire, and that cooperative mills, where established, passed the commercial 

 crisis with great stability. Experiments of this kind are most interesting, and I 

 can only say that I welcome them with great hopefulness. As an emploj^er of 

 labour (for I cannot forget that I am still an employer) I think there is great 

 advantage in working men thus employing themselves and finding out the position 

 of the capitalists, and also discovering that there is not always a profit, but some- 

 times a loss, and that we must not, when we look to men who have made large 

 fortunes, altogether forget that fortunes have been lost. Again, though I cannot 

 aspire to be a statesman, yet as a politician and as a member of the Government 

 of the countr}', 1 hail the success of these experiments still more hopefully. It 

 is said that one of the great causes of stability in America, and even in France, 

 notwithstanding its many convulsions, is the large number of peasant proprietors ; 

 and I think we should have some share of the same kind of stability in this country 

 by having a large number of working men with their own stake in the country and 

 their own interest in its prosperous government. One or two facts have come out 

 even in our discussion which have shown pretty clearly that it is not at all fair, 

 nor true, to suppose that the wages of the working man are in all cases, or I may 

 say even generally, so lavishly spent as some persons suppose. K we could only 

 get a really dependable statistical statement of the increase in the savings of the 

 working classes in one form or another in the last few j'ears I believe we should 

 be astonished and delighted. The success of benefit building societies (upon 

 which we have had a paper in our Section) is only one instance illustrative of this 

 fact. I feel, however, that I cannot leave this labour question (the condition of the 

 labourer in England) without one further remark, and that is some allusion to the 

 movement amongst the agricultural population. There, again, what a progress will. 



