The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-06-11 00:00:00

THE STOURBRIDGE OBSERVER.

authority of the law there ought to be none on the part of
the Opposition in hastening the application of a remedy.
The Land Bill is such a remedy in the opinion of the House
of Commons and of an overwhelming majority of the repre-
sentatives of Ireland. In such circumstances the duty of
Parliament is clear. It must either pass the Bill or dismiss
its authors. To do neither one ndr the other is to play fast
and loose with the vital interests of the Kingdom.

the employed, and the profits of one the gain of the
other." (Cheers.) It is, if I may use such an ex-
pression, like the settlement of an old family law
suit by the marriage of litigants. It ends the
dispute (laughter) because there is nothing left to
dispute about (laughter), and what a dispute it is
to end ! Other conflicts seem drawing to a close, or are
tacitly abandoned, because one side sees that victory is
hopeless. We do not prosecute one another for religion,
because we have recognised the fact that men's religious
idea 4 must be expected to differ indefinitely. We do
not claim for any ruler or for any Government irre-
sponsible authority, because we acknowledge the
right of civilised nations at least to govern them-
selves. Even for our international relations, however
imperfectly and unsuccessfully we may practise the
doctrine, we admit that justice must be the supreme
arbiter and peace the normal relation. But while the
quarrels of former generhtions are eitl- er dying out or
at the worst are assuming milder forms, the new
industrial difficulty is growing into continually larger
proportions. With a continuance of external peace
and the consequent increase of wealth, capital and
labour hardly recognize that they are in opposi-
tion to one another, while capital is on a small
scale, and no vast accumulations exist; but that
is essentially a temporary state of things; the large
business kills out the small one. You begin with
the master working himself personally among the
half-dozen men whom he employs, and you end with
works employing several thousands of hands, and
managed by millionaires in the literal sense of
the word. The difference between the relative
position of employer and employed tends to widen,
not to diminish. Concede to all trade unions possible
freedom of action, let them be managed with the
utmost sk illand prudence, and yet to my thinking,
in the battle they carry on, capital will win in the
end, for this reason :—The employer can afford to
wait longer than the employed; he has reserve funds
to fall back upon; he is only a little impoverished, a
little thrown back in the race, where the operative is
pinched for his daily food. Moreover, the article
which the working man has to sell is one which
in the very nature of things will not keep. He
sells his labour, but obviously, if he cannot sell
to-day's labour at the beginning of the day, he cannot
sell at all. That portion of his stock has perished
in a few hours. The employer also loses by the in-
terruption of work; but he loses less, and he can
afford it better. I do not, therefore, believe in
unionism as a permanent and effective means of re-
conciliation between rival interests, nor have I more
faith in legislation. The United States are the most
democratic country now existing in the world; but
nowhere in the world are individual fortunes made
on so enormous a scale. They certainly exceed those
of England, and that although the taxation on
realized property is far heavier than here. (Hear,
hear.) You cannot legislate effectively to check
industrial accumulations without a double risk-
-first, that of driving away capital, which is
always timid, to other countries, and next,
that of setting men's feelings of personal justice
against the law when it is made to appear that
taxation is directed for the express purpose, perhaps,
of impoverishing a class, not to mention that if a
system of finance avowedly confiscatory be once set on
foot it is not easy to keep it within what its pro-
moters may consider reasonable limits. And yet, if no
remedy be found, if class differences widen instead of
narrow, the prospect is not cheerful. Given the condi-
tion that nearly all political power is virtually in one
class—as under a system of household suffrage, it is when-
ever the class chooses to take it—and nearly all the
surplus wealth which men desire to possess is in the hands
of another class, how long will you be able to avert an
explosion? It is an awkward problem, and, like a nasty
brook or fence to a hunting man, the longer you look at
it the longer it seems. (Laughter.) Yet in one way or
another we have to face it, and it is my deliberate
belief that you, the co-operators, if you have not solved
the difficulty altogether are at least moving in the
direction which promises the most effectual and the
most equitable solution. (Cheers.) These, as it seems
to me, are the three substantial and indisputable gains
of the co-operative movement—no motive for fraud, no
liability to debt, no room for dispute between em-
ployer and employed, and I own, for my part, I am
content to stop there. (Cheers.) If you accomplish
these things you will have done more for the world, or
rather for the portion of it which adopts your ideas,
than has been done or is likely to be done by any other
agency with which lam acquainted. (Loud cheers.)
Having dwelt at some length on other aspects of the
question, the noble lord went on to say,—l ought not
to conclude without a summary of what you have
actually accomplished. I find that in 1861-20 years
ago—you had, in round numbers, 38,000 members,
that in 1871 your numbers were 249,000, and in 1879,
the last year for which I have had a return to-day,
they had increased to 504,000. (Cheers.) Now, as
a large majority of these are married men it is not an
over estimate to reckon co-operators and their families
as including at least one million and a half of the
population. The capital, taking loans and shares
together, was in 1862—there is no return that I could
find for 1861—£365,000 ; in 1871, £2,530,000, and in
1879, £6,700,000 nearly. (Cheers.) The net profits were,
in 1862, £166,000; in 1871, £670,600; in 1879, nearly
£1,600,000. (Cheers.) I state these figures
barely and nakedly ; they are taken from your
recognized organ, the Co-operative News. I apprehend
there can be no doubt about their accuracy, and they
seem to tell more in your favour than volumes of
printed reason and rhetoric. You have not really been
at work much more than 20 years, and already you
have something like one-twentieth of the population
associated with your enterprise. (Cheers.) Continue as
you have begun, and you will not long require annual
explanations of what you want to do, though you may
still hold annual meetings for mutual encouragement
and support. Your work will speak for itself, and believ-
ing, as I do, that its results will be seen not merely
in material advantages, in cheapness of production
and improvement of the article produced, but in
moral benefits, which are of far more importance in
the diminution of fraud, of indebtedness, and social
ill-feeling, I, for one, look forward to the progress of
this movement ai one of the most hopeful signs of our
times, and as a not inconsiderable set-off against the
many dangers and difficulties which surround our
ancient civilization under the disintegrating influences
of new opinions and new ideas. (Loud and prolonged
cheering.)

In supporting a vote of thanks to Lord Derby,
Lord Houghton said that the movement had his
warmest sympathy.

The Times, commenting upon the speech made by Lord
Derby at the opening of the Co-operative Congress,
points out that co-operation is in one form or another
the universal principle of human society, and its develop-
ment in the present day is mainly the carrying out of
ideas and practices as old as industry itself. But the
application of the principle has taken a new departure
in our own times by substituting associated competi-
tion for the cruder form of the competition of individuals.
The problem of co-operative production, unlike that of
distribution, is still to a great extent unsolved, at any
rate in this country ; but no one who has watched
the history of the movement can doubt that it has a great
future before it. The problems are intrinsically dillerent,
and that of production is vastly the more complicated of the
two. The case of agricultural co-operation presents, perhaps,
the greatest difficulty of all. It is almost entirely a question
for the future, and not, perhaps, for the immediate future.
Success in agriculture requires not only discipline and
familiarity with rural life, as Lord Derby says, bi,t it requires
intelligence as well. Have we as yet got the men for the
work? This is a serious question, and perhaps before the
time comes when it can be answered with confidence in the
affirmative many other questions will arise which will
entirely change the condition of the problem to be solved.

The Daily News, in a leader, says that "the great value of
Lord Derby's speech at the Congress of the Co-operative
Societies of England and Wales at I eeds consists, perhaps,
in the cool and business-like impartiality with which he
examines into the claims of the co-operative system. Ile
does good service in pointing out the limits of the system. It
cannot possibly banish the spirit and the practice of com-
petition from the world. The co-operative system endeavours
to find out the conditions under which, in any given commu-
nity, better results for all are to be got by combined and orga-
nized labour than by individual effort. All that any prudent
man would claim for the co-operative system is that it enables
combined energy to produce its best results in fields where
It can work with happier effect than the competing energy
of individual forces. Co-operation, in fact, is competition
massed, disciplined, organized, and turned to the best
social and economical account in the domains which are
fitted for work on such a principle, and on such a scale."

The Daily Chramcle observes that Lord Derby went beyond
groceries and draperies, and demonstrated the moral influence
which results from the application of the co-operative
principle. It promises, in his opinion, the largest results
with the fewest drawbacks. The co-operatixe movement,
he contends, gets rid of all motive for fraud, removes liability
to debt, and leaves no room for dispute between employer
and employed. By exhibiting the various aspects—practical,
economic, and social—of this great question, Lord Derby has
not only placed the principle of co-operation fairly before
the country, but he has thereby rendered signal service to
the public.

The Pall Mall Gazette remarks :—" We may not agree with
all Lord Derby's propositions in his speech at Leeds, but
everybody will feel its sagacity and force. It has the tone of
Peel about it, with a certain speculative quality at the same
time which Peel never had leisure to cultivate. Such a
speech unites wise homeliness with real social vision.
Lord Derby points to a reform which would go
'deeper than most Acts of Parliament when he
contends that 'in the ordinary affairs of life the very
best prviee which could be rendered to any man would
be to make it impossible for him to buy anything, necessaries
excepted, until he had got the money in hand to pay for it.
Co-operation, again, may or may not be the ultimate type of
industrial activity, but it is certain that it would give any
society in which it struck wide and deep roots a stability
which society may one day need."