The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-01-17
SPIRIT OF Tzn rRnss.
Editorial Opinions Of tho Lending Journnls
Upon Current Topics Compiled Every =
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
ADVANTAGES or COOPERATION.

'ould heartily rejoice in the discovery of
me panacea for the strikes, usury, high
nts, low wages, and dear food-in short
n all monopoles which exist, whether of
Dor OF capital. The happy day of the uni
ersal abolition OF. usurers and 'middlemen,
no make money and marketing dear, when
the capitalist and iaborer shall go hand In
hand contented with what they pay and re-
ceive and when landlords and tenants shall
lie down together in mutual satisfaction, is
probably still great distance OF time re-
moved; but there can be no longer doubt
that cooperation has done much to hasten,
at least in the more intelligent and liberal
communities, the reconciliation Of many Of
those differences which have brought capital
and labor into false and damaging antagon-
ism. After more than twenty-five years OF
successful application, in various parts OF Eu-
rope and America, it would seem that the VIZ
tues of cooperation have been clearly esta-
blished; it is highly important, therefore, that
they should be Wanted and the public edu-
Gated to appreciate them. The Tribune has
lately been actively engaged in this work,
and published on Saturday several more let
ters of double series, giving an accurate, if
not an exhaustive, exposition OF practical CO.
operation abroad and at home. These letters
have embraced accounts of the cooperative
groceries of England, France, and Massachu-
setts: the cooperative banks of Germany and
ITALY; the cooperative farms of England and
France; the cooperative kitchens of France
and Switzerland the cooperative dwellings of
France; and the cooperative and industrial
partnerships among iron-moulders, tanners,
printers, weavers, boatmen, bakers, shoe
makers, butchers, comb makers, tailors, etc.,
of both continents The practical efforts of
10 branch of trade have been unnoticed:
heir successes have been fully told, but not
,xagge rated, and few of the many practical
manufacturers, mechanics, and agriculturists,
before whom the letters have been laid, but
have found therein suggestive facts to reflect
upon. Some of these are well worthy of
recapitulation.
l. Cooperation has abolished strikes. II is
the united testimony of our correspondents
abroad and at home, that cooperative facto-
ries have invariably rendered strikes unneces-
Bary in their immediate vicinage, simply by
the regulation of wages which the system
produces. Having themselves to pay, the CO.
operatives are reasonable in their demands,
and the value of wages does not fuctuate.
In vain have the wealthest and best con-
Quoted trades unions in this country and
Europe endeavored to establish and regulate
The value of labor by strikes. They have
proved abortive in nine cases out of ten; at
the best, they have been temporarily success
= full, never decisive; they have merely paralyzed
capital, which can afford to be inactive, but
they have exhausted labor, which cannot
indulge in the luxury of idleness While
trades unions have been expensive and inde-
cisive, as offensive warfare generally proves,
the defensive measures of cooperation have
been profitable as we'll as effective. Our cor
respondent at Milan (Oct 8, 1869 alluded to
q strike of the printers in which the Union
exhausted its exchequer of 10000 francs
when, turning to cooperation as a remedy
they established business on 25, 600 francs
which gave employment to all the strikers
and at once regulated the rates of compost
tion. The iron-moulders of this country have
spent $1, 800, 600 on useless strikes with less
than one-fifth of that sum ten cooperative
foundries have been put ia successful ope-
ration, with the additional result of regula-
ting wages in their localities. The minor
effects of these industrial partnerships in re-
ducing the cost of product by decreasing the
wastage, and advancing the value of real
estate by inducing workmen to settle in the
neighborhood of their workshops, have also
been dwelt upon and conelusively shown in
the letters alluded to.
III. Cooperation reduces the cost of food.
1t is very great fault of the marketing sys-
tenn of this country-and particularly of this
city-that it gives employment and an un.
necessary profit to 'smiddlemen" This profit
the producers and consumers are compelled
to pay; the consumers proportion being much
the largest. 1t is observed that quick effect
of the establishment of the great cooperative
Switzerland, was the abolition of the middle.
men and the consequent reduction of the
cost of all kinds of food The producers &c
to the kitchens as to a market, and dea
directly with the consumers-the Gus
tomers to whom the kitchen furnishes
meals at cost. 1t is a natural result also o.
the establishment Of cooperative stores. Ii
Worcester, Mass, cooperative grocery
there not only controls the country trade il
the county but regulates the prices of all foo
to the consumers. The effect on the price o
food is readily seen. Our correspondent
abroad recites that at Berne he bought at tn
cooperative kitchen there a better bowl 0
soup for > cents than he procured at neigh
boring hotel, which bought its supple
through the market or middlemen, for
cents. The principle involved in bowl O
Swiss soup will apply to a round of America
eef: and in practice the kitchen
nd groceries quoted have made j
pply to all kinds of food
le markets of the towns where they are o.
.blished. Stockholders in the Massachusett
ores save from IL to 33 per cent. on all gre
ceries consumed by them; those in Englan
and France save even more than one-third O
their expenditures.
Ill Cooperation aboishesusur Usurers
of course, live off the needy and poor. Th
cooperative banks of Italy and Germany al
established for the benefit solely of the poort
classes, Those of Italy, to quote M. Gil
yanni Silvestri, the director of the BdRC
PopOlare of Milan, have been entirely sui
versive in principle of the entire craft
money-hucksters and monopolies, from cha
tered State banks to pawnbrokers' shops
The older German banks on the system of