224 



8CIJE]]SrCE. 



[Vol. IX., No. 314 



Small-pox is said to have appeared recently 

 at Holyoke, Mass. , among the rag-sorters of the 

 paper-mills, presumably contracted from handling 

 infected rags. There are two points of interest 

 in connection with these cases, on which we 

 should like information : first, were the suspected 

 rags domestic, or foreign ? and, second, were the 

 rag-sorters vaccinated, and, if so, when was the 

 operation last performed ? The necessity for dis- 

 infecting foreign rags has been so much discussed 

 of late years, that every instance of this kind 

 should be thoroughly investigated, and the results 

 reported in detail. 



The newest monograph of the American eco- 

 nomic association is, like its predecessor, a study 

 of co-operation. But the field of observation is 

 shifted from Minnesota to New England. The 

 author, Mr. Edward W. Bemis, keeps himself in 

 the background throughout, only occasionally in 

 the tone of his treatment giving indications that 

 he is a believer in co-operation as a remedy for 

 many of the existing and much-commented-on 

 labor-troubles. The monograph is contained in 

 one hundred and thirty-six pages, and gives a 

 succinct account of the various co-operative and 

 profit-sharing enterprises undertaken in New 

 England, from the time of the hapless Brook 

 Farm (1842-47) to the introduction of profit-shar- 

 ing into a Boston newspaper establishment at the 

 beginning of the present year. Distributive and 

 productive co-operation are treated separately ; for 

 they are very different things, the former being 

 the simpler, more easUy managed, and requiring 

 a far smaller amount of capital than the other. 

 The conditions of productive co-operation are 

 more complicated and involved than those of co- 

 operative distribution, and therefore the latter 

 comes first in the order of time. 



In New England the development of the co- 

 operative movement seems to have been continuous, 

 for members of the Brook Farm community were 

 prominent in the co-operative enterprises of the 

 Sovereigns of industry and the Knights of labor ; 

 and the various protective unions, and so forth, 

 seem to have grown one out of the other. The 

 Sovereigns of industry, organized in 1874, assert 

 that they were the first to introduce the Rochdale 

 plan into this country, but members of the New 

 England protective union claim to have established 

 co-operative stores on the Rochdale plan in Boston 

 as early as 1864. The peculiarity of the Rochdale 



plan is, as is well understood, that goods shall be 

 sold at the retail market-price, and any profits 

 that remain, after an allowance has been made 

 for a reserve fund and interest on capital, are ap- 

 portioned to the customers on the basis of their 

 trade for the period since the preceding distribu- 

 tion ; it is permitted to stockholders, however, to 

 receive a larger dividend than is paid to outsiders. 



As Mr. Bemis himself says, the record of the 

 early years of the co-operative movement contains 

 more failures than permanent successes. A com- 

 parison of the causes of failure, as adduced by 

 the author, shows a curious agreement, even in 

 the case of enterprises undertaken under condi- 

 tions quite diverse. The New England protective 

 union, for example, went along from 1847 until 

 1852, when it had as many as four hundred and 

 three subdivisions, of which one hundred and 

 sixty-five reported total sales the previous year of 

 11,696,825.46. No attempt had been made to se- 

 cure large profits ; goods were sold at as near the 

 cost-price as was deemed consistent with safety ; 

 and the members were satisfied with six-per-cenfc 

 dividends on the stock. But there was frequently 

 a simultaneous increase, both in the price of goods 

 and in the amount of dividends to the compara- 

 tively small number of stockholders. "Many 

 stores thus ceased to be co-operative, and the 

 stock passed into the hands of a few of the more 

 enterprising or well-to-do." 



It is the same story all the way through. " The 

 underlying causes of all co-operative failures are 

 lack of intelligence and of the spirit of co-opera- 

 tion." After a time there is a disagreejpient ; the 

 management is declared to be arbitrary ; the store- 

 keeper is paid too much ; it is asserted that better 

 bargains can be made outside. This creates lack 

 of confidence, and to restore it there is a depart- 

 ure from the cash principle, or an increased divi- 

 dend is declared. The result is disastrous. Most 

 of the above sentences are culled from Mr. Bemis's 

 history of the various concerns, and not a few of 

 them are in substance the words of such believers 

 in co-operation as Holyoake, George E. McNeill, 

 and others. They involve the admission of aU 

 that the friendly critics of co-operation claim ; 

 that is, that it is an ideal scheme, suited to a per- 

 fectly homogeneous community, the members of 

 which are willing to make extensive temporary 

 sacrifices in order to its ultimate success. For this 



