The patron of husbandry. (Columbus, Miss.) 1875-1883, 1879-05-31
COOPERATION.

towards that independence which all in
telligent persons desire to attain, these
store to be followed by manufacturing en-
terprises of various kinds, to be operated
on the same plan. We have shown how
the competitive system of the merchants
has not only impoverished the producers
and consumers, but brought thousands
upon thousands of them with their fami-
lies to a condition quite as helpless and
hopeless as that of the serfs of Russia.
Until the Rochdale cooperative system
was established in England and became
self-sustaining, there was no possible es-
cape of the great mass of the people from
the exactions and expressions of the mer-
chants system. They were ground to the
very Dust, and their children grew up in
ignorance that fitted them to become the
accomplishing slaves of capital. A SIM
liar state of affairs would have existed in
this country, but for the great breadth of
territory which admitted of laboring men,
after they had been robbed of their sub
stance by the merchants, to move to new
country where they could make new
start in life. This business system of the
merchants has been the cause of more
bankruptcy and ruin, the blighting gilmore
hopes and happiness, and the general i'm
poverishment of the people, than all the
Ubiquitous legislation of Congress and Leg
islatures combined. Indeed, the mer-
chants and bankers, and money specula-
tors. have controlled the legislation of the
country by controlling the lawyer-poiiti-
clans, and SO shaped it as to promote and
increase both their wealth and power at
the expense of the toiling masses.
The merchant should be rather the SER
want of the producer and the consumer
than the Inaster he should receive orders
from the Isaer, rather than dictate terms
and prices to them This natural position
of the classes can be established through
the Rochdale cooperative system, and
the complete enthronement OF that system
in this country is but a question OF time.
When the business of the country is con-
Quoted upon that plan, the great leading
classes the producers and consumers. in
stead of being defrauded of their sub
stance and oppressed by mere handful
of the community comparatively, will
have their business attended to cheaply
and honestly, and the merchant will be in
his proper position-the agent or servant
of those who support him.
The people can never secure justice in
any business system which they cannot
control. They have no voice whatever in
the establishment and enforcement of the
rules which govern in the merchants sys-
tenn, no matter how UNI ust and oppressive
they may be- The only alternative left
them is, to establish cooperative stores
and agencies and transact all their bust
ness on that plan.
To show how oppressive and unjust the
merchants business system is, we make
the following extracts from a recent En-
glish publication in which the principles
and practice of the competitive or mer-
chants system are fairly stated and ably |
discussed. The views of this writer may
tend to stimulate those Oranges that have
not established cooperative stores, to more
earnest thought and action on the subject. |
and we urge them to give careful atten- !,
ton to the facts given bv him SO clearly
and forcibly. He goes on to say:
1t is evident that the interest of the ira.
der is opposed to that of the consumer
and of the producer Has he not bought |
cheap and undervalued as much as posi- |
Ole IN all his dealings with the producer, |
the very same article which, Wanting its |
excellence, he sells to you as dear as he |
can! Thus the interest of the commercial |
body, collectively and individually, is con-
trary TO that of the producer and of the |
consumer-that is to say, to the interest of
the whole body of society.
The trader is a go-between, who profits |
by the general anarchy and the non. or
ganizatlon of industry. The trader buys
up products, he buys up everything; he
owns and detains everything, in such sort
that
sumption under lis yoke, because both
SOiIC " AlIIll CllilCI TIC
products to be consumed, or at first for the
raw material to be worked up. Com
merce, with all is methods of buying, and
of raising and towering prices, its innu-
merable devices, and its holding every
thing in the hands of middLe-men, levies
toll right and left: it despotically gives the
law to Production and Consumption, of
which it ought TO be only the subordinate.
q 1t robs society of its enormous profits
profits levied upon the consumer and
the producer, and altogether out of pro-
portion to the services rendered, for which
twentieth of the persons actually en-
ployed would be sufficient.
3. 1t robs society by the subtraction of
its productive forces; taking off from pro-
ductive labor nineteen-twentieths of the
agents of trade who are mere parasites.
Thus not only does commerce rob society