The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1885-02-07 00:00:00

MR. FORSTER,M.P., ON CO-OPERATION.

Mr. Forster presided on Saturday at the twenty-
fifth anniversary of the Bradford Co-operative Society,
and spoke at some length on the value of co-opera-
tion. The progress made in co-operation had been,
he said, very remarkable throughout the whole
country. In 1862 the number of members belonging
to co-operative societies was 90,000, whilst in 1881
the number had risen to 643,000. (Cheers.) The
capital in 1862 was £428,000, but now it was
£7,000,000. The sales in 1862 were £2,333,000, but
now they reached £25,000,000, although the Civil
Service Stores, which were included in the returns
now, no doubt accounted for a million of two of the
money. On that SUM there was close upon two
million pounds profit divisible amongst the members.
He had often asked himself if the immense progress
of the movement was a good thing or not. He
could not say co-operative societies had not, done
some harm, and had been hard upon the poor
shopkeeper. Of course there was no good
movement without some degree of harm in it; but
he thought the balance of good was in favour of the
co-operative societies. One great secret why the co-
operative movement had succeeded so well as it had
was that it had been and was a spontaneous self-
helping movement amongst the working classes of the
country, and there was no reliance upon patronage.
Upon the whole he had come to the conclusion that
the movement had been a great good. Speaking for
a moment from the view of a capitalist, or as one of
the propertied class, there was a good deal of fear
now existing amongst some of the propertied class.
There was a good deal of wild talk against property.
But he had lived through times in which there had
been wilder talk and property had remained. (Hear,
hear.) And if people who had property tried to
fulfil the duties of property they would be pretty sure
that whatever were their rights they would get them.
(Hear, hear.) As one who belonged to the pro-
pertied class he would say he thought it an advantage
to have six hundred and fifty thousand working men
belonging to that class. (Hear, hear.) It was, in
fact, an ad rantage to the capitalist class to have so
many working men amongst them who were
thus made to feel they had something whose
value would be probably less if there was any revolu-
tionary act, any attack upon property, or any attempt
to interfere with the order and well-being of the
country. The ready-money payments demanded in
co-operative societies, although sometimes difficult,
were, on the whole, a good thing for the working man,
who was far less burdened with debt, and everyone
knew what misery debt meant in its influence upon a
working man's household. (Applause.) The profit the
members received was not, however, the only advan-
tage members of a co-operative society received; they
learned the value and advantages of money in a more
important degree, and also the advantages of thrift.
Some people wanted to see an extension of co-opera-
tion, by going in for co-operation in land, but his
advice to them was to keep off farming, it was a
poor trade at present, and generally bore as low a
profit as was possible. If they went into manufac-
tures and worked mills they would then learn some of
the difficulties the employers had to contend with,
and find perhaps that they had not so much cause to
grumble, and if they succeeded all the better. Pro-
duction, they must remember, was a much more diffi-
cult matter than distribution. It required much
more organisation, and someone to be the captain to
give the orders and see that they were carried out,
and carried out with care and exactness. They could
not manage a large productive business by a committee.
Another question he had been asked was, "would co-
operation do away with excessive wealth on the one
hand, and poverty on the other?" That was a yery
hard thing to do, and, though he hoped it would
diminish poverty, he could not say it would diminish
excessive wealth. He thought the working classes
were better off now than they were 25 years ago, and
that there were more sympathy and better feelings
than there used to be between employed and employer.
The plan of co-operation he most cared about was the
co-operat.on of the Colonies with England, which he
hoped to see effected, and which, he had no doubt,
would strengthen the peace of the world. (Cheers.)

SATURDAY, FEB 7, tSS