New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-01-15

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
indecisive, as offensive warfare generally proves,
the defensive measures of cooperation have
been profitable as well as effective. Our cor
respondent at Milan (Oct. 8, 1869, alluded to
a strike of the Printers in which the Union
exhausted it's exchequer of 10000 francs, when,
turning to cooperation as remedy, they estab-
lished a business on $4,000 francs which gave
employment to all the strikers, and at once
regulated the rates of composition. The Iron
Molders Of this country have spent Sl,5OOOOO
on useless strikes; with less than one-ifth OF
that sum, ten cooperative founderies have been
nut in successful operation, with the additional
result of regulating wages in their localities.
The minor effects of these industrial partner
ships in reducing the cost of product by de-
creasing 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 c0nclusyely shown
in the letters alluded to.
fl. Cooperation reduces the cost of food. 1t
is very great fault of the marketing system
of this country-and particularly of this city
that it gives employment and an unnecessary
profit to "middlemen" This profit the pro-
ducers 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
kitchens at Grenoble, France. and Berne, Swift
erland. was the abolition of the middemen and
the consequent reduction of the cost OF all
MI 70 In itph
ems as to q market and deal directly with the
consumers-the customers to whom the Kitchen
furnishes meals at cost. 1t is natural result
also of the establishment of cooperative stores.
In Worcester. Mass, cooperative grocery
there not only controls the country trade III
the county but regulates the prices OF all 1000
TO the consumers. The effect on the price OF
food is readily seen. Our correspondent abroad
rectes that at Berne he bought at the CO.
operative kitchen there a better bowl of soup
for 9 cents than he procured at neighborlng
hotel, which bought its supplies through the
market or mddlemen, for IL cents. The prln-
cple involved in bowl of Swiss soup will
apply TO n round of American beef; and in
practice the kitchens and groceries quoted
have made it apply to all kinds of food in the
markets of the towns where they are estaD-
lished. Stockholders in the Massachusetts
stores save from II to SO per cent. on all gro
ceries consumed by them; those In England
and France save even more than One-third Of
their expenditures.
III. Cooperation abOlshes usury. Usurers, of
course, live off the needy and poor. The CO.
operative banks OF Italy and Germany are es-
tablshed for the benefit solely of the poorer
e I,o1, 20
Silvestri, the Director of the Banca Popotare
at Milan, have been "entirely subyersve in
principle Of the egtiI9 sTiaaft Of money -huck-
:" sters and m6hopoies, from chartered State
"banks to pawnbrokers' shops The older
German banks on the system of NJ. Schulze
Delitsch report the same practical result.
". Cooperation reduces rents. The history
of the cooperative dwellings at Guse contains
proof of this. The "Familistere" at that place,
now 90 years old, has not only furnished better
lodgings to 800 persons of the working class at
| less rates than the wretched novels In which
| they previously lived at rents ranging from
81 to 81 50 per month, but has regulated at a
low rate rents in all parts of the town.
V. The greatest enemy of Cooperation is lg-
| norance The system has been most successful
in the more enlightened communities. 1t is
| noteworthy, though by no means singular, that
these communities have invariably been Lib
eral and Republican in politics. Rochdale,
England, where cooperation in trade began, Is
John Bright's district The German banks are
established in the country where education is
most general and German republicans are most
numerous In Italy, the successes have been
chiefly ut Milan and Como, and the central part
of Northern Italy, which has always been free
from clerical and Austrian influence. In
France, Cooperation has been most vigorous in
Lyons, where exist the most earnest Republic
ans and here it has prospered in spite of the
opposition of the present Napoleon, who made
the suppression by Gen. Castellane of the re-
publican cooperative associations a principal
part of the programme of the coup detdt OF
1851. In this country, the principal successes
have been in Massachusetts and the rural dis
tricts of Central New York.
Against this ignorance, the friends of CO.
operation ought to wage persistent warfare by
the publication of all practical information at
tainable. The result would soon be observable
and encouraging, and produce practical al
lance between producers and consumers, La
borers and Capitalists, which would better the
condition of all classes and help every branch
of Industry.
BROWN'S BURDENS.
1t was the paternal Weller who made the
hot in life "A