The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1880-04-21
Batuaiiatt 0azette.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2l, 1880.
The Principle OF Cooperation.
BY THE HoN. JOSIAH QUINCY.

the tower of Babel to the tunnel under the
| Alps, from the conquests of Cambyses to the
war in Afghanistan. Since the beginning of
history men have been trained to cooperate,
or work together but it has been for the bene-
| fit of the few Millions of co-operators have
fallen upon the battlefield to render the names
| of Caesar and Napoleon immortal, and thou
sands have died in mines and manufactures to
increase the wealth of individuals. This great
| principle has been used, almost exclusively,
| for the glory of kings or to the benefit of sa-
| gacious capitalists. The object of the co-opera-
tive movement is to enable the industrial
classes, as far as possible, to cooperate for
their otcn benefit, and not exclusively for that
! of their employers. Capitalists and philan-
thropists have at times endeavored to effect
this object, but the lives of Fourier and Owen
| and the history of New Harmony and Orbiston
proved that they missed the conditions of
success. But what the wealthy and the wise
| could not do the ignorant and the poor have
accomplished.
A few weavera met in Toad land, in Roch-
dale, united their small savings, and on the
twenty-frst OF December 1913, opened, on two
evenings OF the week, the first cooperative
store. Their stock consisted of % pounds of
butter, so pounds of sugar, 6 sacks -four, 2
pounds of candles and l sack of meal-all to-
gether worth less than $50. In 1875 they had
$500 members; their funds, after deducting
what had been drawn out by the shareholders,
amounted to Sl.270,000, their business that
year amounted TO 81 1925, $50, and their profits
to $3.50, $40. Their central store is the finest
building in the city; they own property all
over the borough, and have estates covered
with streets of houses built for co-operators.
And this is not all two and half per cent.
- C.. L. L. j I
cational Fund, which besides sustaining
science classes and lectures, has fine library
of many thousand volumes at the central store,
with reviews, maps and costly books of re-
ference, and supports fourteen reading rooms,
well provided with magazines, reviews and
newspapers.
And this is not a solitary case. In 1877
meeting was held to dedicate an expensive
store and library at Durham. One of the
original founders there stated that in 1862
eight workingmen raised the sum of seventeen
dollars and fifty cents, and invested it in
seven pounds of -four, little sugar, and box
of backing. In 1877 they had 2,643 members,
S93,044 in the funds, their business that year
amounted to $40, 537 and their profits to
S57 $50, aud during the fourteen years of their
existence they had divided over 100000
among their shareholders.
The widespread interest on the subject is
shown by statement made by the Marquis of
Ripon at the cooperative Congress held at
Manchester in 1878. He stated that there
were 1000 societies in England, with $4,000
members a share capital of $4,000, 900,
doing an annual business of SlOO,OOO,00O
These results have been attained by adhering
strictly to honest dealings, uuadulterated
goods, and cash in all transactions. To these
have been added pluck, and a believing with
Cobbett that " in good cause success is Ger
tain, if you only begin and stick to it."
DIR. Franklin in his will says that he owed
all his success in life to having obtained
small sum of money when young; and his case
is similar to that of thousands of the now
prosperous and wealthy. But how can poor
man obtain it? He has no rich friends to lend
it, and poor men, if they have any surplus
earnings, deposit them in savings bank,
where it is lent only in large sums to the rich
If obtained by poor man at all it is at an
enormous rate of interest, and the continuance
of the loan depends, generally, on men who
will take every advantage of the borrower
The borrower feels that if he could obtain
the advance and have it repayable in monthly
installments, as he pays his rent, he could get
house, and have the strongest inducement
to industry, temperance and economy. To
pIONluc lOI ILLS WduI Ill6 SO-Op6TlLlVe Loan
Fund Associations have been organized
Their mode of operation is very simple. They
meet once month, when each shareholder
pays dollar on every share he holds, and the
borrower pays one month s interest on his loan
As soon as collected this money is put up at
auction and sold to the highest bidder who can
give satisfactory security, The interest ap-
pears in many cases to be high, but it is prob
ably as low as the borrower must pay if he
obtained the money from any other source.
Securities are of but two kinds loans on real
estate and on shares at their valuation at the
last settlement. If on real estate, the borrower
gives mortgage and assigns as security
number of shares which when fully paid will
amount in value to the loan. For instance, a
person borrows one thousand dollars He gives
a mortgage and transfers five shares. Every
month he pays dollar on each share and the
interest on the loan until each of his shares
is worth two hundred dollars; when his debt
is paid Those who do not borrow but who
use the association simply as a savings bank
pay their monthly dues, and if they do not, as
they can, withdraw the money before, with its
accumulated interest, receive the whole in
cash when the series is complete. The time of
this completion depends on the price obtained
for money. In some cases the limit has been
reached in eight years, which gave an interest
of 81 per cent. usually it requires ten, which
gives l315. This the non-borrowers receive
in cash and the borrowers in credit on their
notes.
This system has been in use in Philadelphia
unde the name of Building Societies, for about
thirty years, and there has been no case of
failure. There are now over 500 of these
associations in that city, with an ultimate
capital of a hundred million of dollars-ten
times the amount held by the Savings Banks.
These have given homes to 10000 working
men and now hold $4,000 mortgages, which
are being paid off by monthly assessments.
The advantage of giving to workingman
the possession or prospect of obtaining
house cannot be overestimated, and the ad-
vantage is scarcely less to him than to his
wealthy neighbor When the riots took place
at Pittsburg fears were entertained that they
might spread to Baltimore and New York.
There was no fear for Philadelphia for in
that city the workingmen owned their houses,
and formed an insurmountable barrier for the
protection of property. In the great metro
polls the 10000 inmates of tenement houses,
who had nothing to loose, might have sacked
the city and caused incalcualble damage before
they could lave been put down by the mill
tary. In the language of Thomas Hughes :" No
individual life can be truly prosperous passed
in the midst OF those who suffer; to the noble
soul it cannot be happy; to the ignoble it
cannot be secured"