827 
A NEW SOET OE CO-OPEEAT1VE TEADING. 
It is not with any intention of renewing or extending discussions such as we 
have recently had occasion to report, or with a desire to create unnecessary 
alarm, that we bring under the notice of our readers a proposition which has 
been recently advertised, and appears to be extensively and powerfully 
patronized, for the establishment of a new sort of co-operative trading,—if, 
indeed, that can be called trading which relates to professional work. The 
co-operative stores were founded for the purpose of supplying goods—food, 
and clothing, and the necessaries of life—to those who subscribe to a common 
fund, at prices less than they can be purchased at elsewhere ; and this is done 
ostensibly for the benefit of persons of small means, whose incomes are inade¬ 
quate to the conventional requirements of the society in which they mix. 
Practically, however, it has been found that the advantages afforded by the co¬ 
operative stores are not confined to the class of persons for whom they were 
originally designed, but that rich and poor alike partake of them. The long 
established institutions of commerce are thus disturbed, dissatisfaction is created 
where there are no just grounds for it, suspicions are raised of impositions which 
do not exist, and confidence is shaken in the fair dealing and honest integrity of 
industrious tradesmen whose very means of support are thus imperilled ; while 
at the same time a resort to deception is promoted for the purpose of counteract¬ 
ing the injurious influences of such interference with the legitimate occupations 
of trade. The system has not hitherto been applied to professional work, but 
professional men are among the number of those who avail themselves of the co¬ 
operative system for obtaining such goods as they require, and can they wonder 
if sooner or later the system should be found to affect them in another w r ay ? If 
clergymen and lawyers, magistrates and doctors, as well as Government 
officers, disregarding the recognized laws of trade, deprive the retail tradesman 
of his fair and legitimate profit by adopting a cunningly devised expedient for 
getting goods at wholesale prices, they must expect as the natural result of such 
proceedings that the system they have adopted shall react upon themselves, and 
that honest and hardworking but unremunerated tradesmen will, in their turn, 
adopt a co-operative system for getting their professional and civil-service work 
done at the cheapest possible rale. It appears that a movement is now being 
made in this direction, as the following advertisement, copied from the ‘ Times ’ 
of June 4th, will show :— 
METROPOLITAN MUTUAL MEDICAL AID SOCIETY, for Securing Profes¬ 
sional Medical or Surgical Attendance, and to supply all Medicines to Subscribers. 
Under the Patronage of 
The Right Hon. the Lord Mayor, 
The Right Hon. James Stansfeld, M.P., 
The Hon. Sir James Hannen, Court of Queen’s Bench, 
The Hon. James Bacon, Chief Judge in Bankruptcy, 
Sir William Henry Bodkin, Assistant-Judge, Middlesex. 
Committee. 
Sir Thos. Duffus Hardy, 35, North Bank, Regent’s Park. 
W. H. Ashurst, Esq., Solicitor to General Post-Office. 
Robert Barrow, Esq., Blackheath Park. 
Charles Bischoff, Esq., Inner Park Road, Wimbledon. 
James Bischoff, Esq., 73, Kensington Gardens Square. 
Alfred Borwick, Esq., Higham Hill, Walthamstow. 
Edward Bromley, Esq., 43, Bedford Row, W.C. 
J. R. Brougham, Esq, 36, Leinster Square. 
Edward Frederick Burton, Esq., 25, Chancery Lane, E.C. 
William Coulson, Esq., Consulting Surgeon to St. Mary’s Hospital. 
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