l'on saura d'eux si les établissements les plus importants en leurs genres de fabrication ne sont pas les établissements des associés."

The vitality of these associations must indeed be great, to have enabled about twenty of them to survive not only the anti-socialist reaction, which for the time discredited all attempts to enable workpeople to be their own employers— not only the tracasseries of the police, and the hostile policy of the government since the usurpation-but in addition to these obstacles, all the difficulties arising from the trying condition of financial and commercial affairs from 1854 to 1858. Of the prosperity attained by some of them even while passing through this difficult period, I have given examples which must be conclusive to all minds as to the brilliant future reserved for the principle of co-operation.

It is not in France alone that these associations have commenced a career of prosperity. To say nothing at present of Piedmont or of Germany, England can produce cases of success rivalling even those which I have cited from France. Under the impulse commenced by Mr. Owen, and more recently propagated by the writings and personal efforts of a band of friends, chiefly clergymen and barristers, to whose noble exertions too much praise can scarcely be given, the good seed was widely sown; the necessary alterations in the English law of partnership were obtained from Parliament, on the benevolent and public-spirited initiative of Mr. Slaney; many industrial associations, and a still 1 greater number of co-operative stores for retail purchases, were founded. Among these are already many instances of remarkable prosperity, the most signal of which are the Leeds Flour Mill, and the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers. Of this last association, the most successful of all, the history has been written in a very interesting manner by Mr. Holyoake ;* and the notoriety which by this and other means has been given to facts so encouraging, is caus

* Self-help by the People-History of Co-operation in Rochdale.

ing a rapid extension of associations with similar objects in Lancashire and Yorkshire.

The original capital of the Rochdale Society consisted of 281., brought together by the unassisted economy of about forty labourers, through the slow process of a subscription of twopence (afterwards raised to threepence) per week. With this sum they established in 1844 a small shop, or store, for the supply of a few common articles for the consumption of their own families. As their carefulness and honesty brought them an increase of customers and of subscribers, they extended their operations to a greater number of articles of consumption, and in a few years were able to make a large investment in shares of a Cooperative Corn Mill. Mr. Holyoake thus relates the stages of their progress up to 1857.

"The Equitable Pioneer's Society is divided into seven departments: Grocery, Drapery, Butchering, Shoemaking, Clogging, Tailoring, Wholesale.

"A separate account is kept of each business, and a general account is given each quarter, showing the position of the whole.

"The grocery business was commenced as we have related, in December 1844, with only four articles to sell. It now includes whatever a grocer's shop should include.

"The drapery business was started in 1847, with an humble array of attractions. In 1854 it was erected into a separate department.

"A year earlier, 1846, the Store began to sell butchers' meat, buying eighty or one hundred pounds of a tradesman in the town. After a while, the sales were discontinued until 1850, when the Society had a warehouse of its own. Mr. John Moorhouse, who has now two assistants, buys and kills for the Society three oxen, eight sheep, sundry porkers and calves, which are on the average converted into 130. of cash per week.

"Shoemaking commenced in 1852. Three men and an apprentice make, and a stock is kept on sale.

"Clogging and tailoring commenced also in this year. "The wholesale department commenced in 1852, and marks an important development of the Pioneers' proceedings. This department has been created for supplying any members requiring large quantities, and with a view to supply the co-operative stores of Lancashire and Yorkshire, whose small capitals do not enable them to buy in the best markets, nor command the services of what is otherwise indispensable to every store-a good buyer, who knows the markets and his business, who knows what, how, and where to buy. The wholesale department guarantees purity, quality, fair prices, standard weight and measure, but all on the never-failing principle, cash payment."

In consequence of the number of members who now reside at a distance, and the difficulty of serving the great increase of customers, "Branch stores have been opened. In 1856, the first Branch was opened, in the Oldham Road, about a mile from the centre of Rochdale. In 1857 the Castleton Branch, and another in the Whitworth Road, were established, and a fourth Branch in Pinfold."

The warehouse, of which their original Store was a single apartment, was taken on lease by the Society, very much out of repair, in 1849. "Every part has undergone neat refitting and modest decoration, and now wears the air of a thoroughly respectable place of business. One room is now handsomely fitted up as a newsroom. a newsroom. Another is neatly fitted up as a library. . . . . . . Their newsroom is as well supplied as that of a London club." It is now "free to members, and supported from the Education Fund," a fund consisting of 24 per cent of all the profits divided, which is set apart for educational purposes. "The Library contains 2200 volumes of the best, and among them, many of the most expensive books published. The Library is free. From 1850 to 1855, a school for young persons was conducted at a charge of twopence per month. Since 1855, a room has been granted by the Board for the use of from

twenty to thirty persons, from the ages of fourteen to forty for mutual instruction on Sundays and Tuesdays. . . .

...

"The corn-mill was of course rented, and stood at Small Bridge, some distance from the town-one mile and a half. The Society have since built in the town an entirely new mill for themselves. The engine and the machinery are of the most substantial and improved kind. The capital invested in the corn-mill is 8,4507. of which 3,7317. 158, 2d. is subscribed by the Equitable Pioneers' Society. The corn-mill employs eleven men."

At a later period they extended their operations to the staple manufacture itself. From the success of the Pioneers' Society grew not only the co-operative corn-mill, but a cooperative association for cotton and woollen manufacturing. "The capital in this department is 4000l., of which sum 20427. has been subscribed by the Equitable Pioneers' Society. This Manufacturing Society has ninety-six power looms at work, and employs twenty-six men, seven women, four boys, and five girls-in all forty-two persons. . . .

"In 1853 the Store purchased for 7457., a warehouse (free-hold) on the opposite side of the street, where they keep and retail their stores of flour, butcher's meat, potatoes, and kindred articles. Their committee-rooms and offices are fitted up in the same building. They rent other houses adjoining for calico and hosiery and shoe stores. In their wilderness of rooms, the visitor stumbles upon shoemakers and tailors, at work under healthy conditions, and in perfect peace of mind as to the result on Saturday night. Their warehouses are everywhere as bountifully stocked as Noah's Ark, and cheerful customers literally crowd Toad Lane at night, swarming like bees to every counter. The industrial districts of England have not such another sight as the Rochdale Co-operative Store on Saturday night."*

"But it is not," adds Mr. Holyoake, "the brilliancy of commercial activity in which either writer or reader will take the deepest interest; it is in the new and improved spirit animating this intercourse of trade. Buyer and seller meet as friends; there is no overreaching on one side, and no suspicion on the other.

Since the disgraceful failure of the Rochdale Savings Bank in 1849, the Society's Store has become the virtual Savings Bank of the place.

The following table, completed to 1860 from the Almanack published by the Society, shows the pecuniary result of its operations from the commencement.

I need not enter into similar particulars respecting the Corn-Mill Society, and will merely state that in 1860 its

... These crowds of humble working men, who never knew before when they put good food in their mouths, whose every dinner was adulterated, whose shoes let in the water a month too soon, whose waistcoats shone with devils' dust, and whose wives wore calico that would not wash, now buy in the markets like millionnaires, and as far as pureness of food goes, live like lords." Far better, probably, in that particular; for assuredly lords are not the customers least cheated, in the present race of dishonest competition. "They are weaving their own stuffs, making their own shoes, sewing their own garments, and grinding their own corn. They buy the purest sugar and the best tea, and grind their own coffee. They slaughter their own cattle, and the finest beasts of the land waddle down the streets of Rochdale for the consumption of flannel weavers and cobblers. (Last year the Society advertised for a Provision Agent to make purchases in Ireland, and to devote his whole time to that duty.) When did com. petition give poor men these advantages? And will any man say that the moral character of these people is not improved under these influences. The teetotallers of Rochdale acknowledge that the Store has made more sober men since it