SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



Mr. Holyoake tells us they weathered the storm. He gives the following 

 figures for the towns of Oldham (where there were two societies), Liverpool, 

 Bury, and Bacup :- 



459 



Place 



Year 



Members 



Capital 



ProfitB 



Business 



Oldham . 

 J) • 



Liverpool 



Bury 



Bacup 



1857 

 1861 

 1862 

 1863 

 [1862 ?] 

 1862? 

 1862? 



482 

 924 

 824 

 861 



3,154 

 1,412 

 2,296 



«,745 

 9.130 

 8,034 

 9,165 



3,201 

 4,689 

 6,618 



13,522 



41,901 

 63,366 



44,355 

 47,658 

 53,663 



Bacup, he says, suffered more from the cotton famine than did Rochdale, 

 where more of the woollen industry was carried on. Bacup had scarcely any 

 other trade than cotton, and the society's receipts ' went down half.' Other 

 towns such as Mossley, Dukinfield, Stalybridge, Ashton, Heywood, Middle- 

 ton, and Rawtenstall and Hyde, being ' almost entirely cotton towns,' suffered 

 greatly, yet none of the stores failed, so that ' taken altogether,' writes 

 Mr. Holyoake, ' the co-operative societies in Lancashire are as numerous and 

 as strong now as before the cotton panic set in. Even Manchester, which is 

 good for nothing now, except to sell cotton, has created a Manchester and Salford 

 Store, maintained for five years an average of 1,200 members, and made for 

 them £y,ooo profit.'**" 



The co-operative societies had added milling *" and manufacturing *"* to 

 their branches of enterprise ; they also built cottages for their members to 

 occupy, and provided educational facilities, newsrooms, and science classes.**^ 

 At Rochdale and at Oldham they had spinning mills, but their chief efforts 

 have been expended on the maintenance of the great stores now to be met 

 with in nearly every town of ordinary size. In the year of the cotton famine 

 out of 454 societies in the whole of England and Wales more than a quarter 

 of this number belonged to Lancashire, which had 1 17 societies to the 96 of 

 Yorkshire.*^* Reviewing the respective methods of co-operation and of 

 trade unionism Mr. Holyoake describes the strikes organized by the latter 

 as ' a contest of starvation.' Co-operation, he argues, is a mutual arrange- 

 ment ; competition, on the other hand, is war, capital offering the least it 

 can, and labour exacting the most it is able to win. Outside co-operation, 

 concludes Mr. Holyoake, ' there is no right, it is all claim and contest.'*" 



The great moral value and object of the co-operative principle was that 

 it sought to place the working classes beyond the need of charity, and ' to 

 supersede goodwill by establishing good conditions.' *'° It rescued them 

 effectually from remaining at the tender mercy of monopoly, which had 

 hitherto made the poor man's extremity the rich man's opportunity. 



Just about the time when co-operation was reviving, trade unionism 

 was also making great strides. By the forties it was extended to the spinners, 



"' Hist, of Co-operation, ii, 62. Mr. Holyoake does not expressly name the year for which the estimates 

 of Liverpool, Bury, and Bacup are given, but presumably it was the year he is speaking of, 186 1-2. 



*™ Ibid. 63. This was referring to the year 1875. "' Ibid. 52. "^ Ibid 



^'^ Ibid. '" Ibid. 64. «' Ibid. 261 et seq. «^ Ibid'. 



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