The Republican journal., 1886-04-29
Industrial Corporation.
BY C. S. GRIFFIN.

| OF location; and i'll the next how capital coulC!
safely invest in labor in manner that would
make the laborer as independent as a capitalist
could be, with borrowed capital. We will now
consider some of the advantages and methods
of working a cooperative colony A poor man
has to pay a higher rate of interest for borrow
ell capital than rich man, simply because the
rich man is considered the safer risk. Under
the cooperative system the poor are put on an
equal footing with the rich in this respect. 1t
also raises the very poorest workmen to an i'll
dependence and power above the small and
middle class capitalists. And in fact the very
richest capitalist cannot hire labor and success
fully compete with well organized co-operl-
tive colony. Outside of cooperation the poor
have but little better than a choice of evils.
They can, by the most rigid economy and in
dustry, if health prevails under personal prva-
tons, become in few years small capitalists or
employers. But even here they are in compe-
tition not only with the very rich, but in COM
petition with incorporated combinations of the
richest, which in fact is il cooperation of capi-
tallsts against which they are trying to compete
single handed. In this position bankruptcy is
always staring the small capitalist in the face.
His only other choice is to give up business and
let himself AS a servant to some capitalist or to
some corporation, under whose dictaton and at
whose beck and call he must always answer.
AS between small capitalist and large SER
want, you would better be the servant, because
under such servitude you will find more liberty
and independence. There are many opportuni-
ties still open for the small capitalist but these
are in lines where the large capitalists and in
corporated combinations of capitalists nave not
yet fully taken hold. But this ground of the
small capitalist is growing narrower every day
If some almighty power had issued an order
for the ''perfect union of all men in one abso-
lutte brotherhood" the order could not have
been more strictly obeyed than it is now being
under the pressure of our competitive system
Though the order is being obeyed but slowly
from year to year, it is surely being obeyed
First, men united under kings then united their
Kingdoms into empires. Then the empires en-
tered into international compacts. No sooner
had the world united and elevated cmperors
than the masses demanded to be lifted. First
the king was obliged to accept counsel. Then
he had to admit the existence of a whole house
of lords. The next pressure demanded and
found room for Il house of commons. Next
came the republic. Next came the corporations
for the lawful union and lawful equality of ac-
cumulated fortunes. Then came the union of
corporations into pools, and managed by Syndi-
Gates. This brought such pressure on the low
er and least ambitious classes that they We're
forced to unite, and by the same power are
forced to cooperate in various ways. 1t was
this same pressure that aroused inventive gen
ill> and created the railroads, steamships and
factories, and 50 organized the workers in fac
tory that each person had but one thing to do
and but one to learn, and each could operate to
the greatest advantage of all. And so the un-
ION must go on, and the very lowest will and
must demand to stand equal to the highest.
And this equality cannot be reached under sep
aration but is only possible under uncn. Thus
the great order is being and must be obeyed.
Therefore ''Ie shall serve the children of men; I;
shall do good all thy days, and shall call no man
MASTER"
This then is the great problem, the science Of
uAt0H amt ibcrty. as against disunion and con-
>equent oppression. Man never made the law
and he cannot amend it. He therefore must
obey it or suffer, and finally through suffering
must obey or be eXtcrminated, for the great
law of union and HJerty came from source
that knows no defeat.
The tired woman that tugged away all day at
her spinning wheel for few skeins of yarn is
now superseded by girl of less training rum
ming several machines and spinning thousand
times more yarn with less effort. We see a sin
Gle baker making more bread than hundred
housewives, and he uses less physical and men-
tai energy than either of Them wastes and
spoilS less material and produces as good an an
tcle. All this results from combination of
capital and a combination of intelIectS to invent
and set up the machines If during the gold
fever of 1919 all the miners who walked across
the continent had given but one days work TO
the building of a railroad across there they
would have owned a means of conveyance that
would have carried them all across ten tholls-
and times with less effort than it required for
them to walk across once. This is the natural
reward of cooperation. But each decided to
got his suffering.
We see a little ten acre farm with Il thousand
dollars worth of improved machinery on it.
There isn't land enough to pay the interest on
the machines and the farmer is consequently
starved out. Again here is hundred acres of
land and no machines. Here too the farmer is
starved out. One is all machines and no land,
and the other is all land and no machinery.
Either scheme is an i'll fix for this generation,
matter whether dllplipI in M IA
Ten ten acre farms with machinery and build
lngS and help enough on either of them to run
all the farms combined, and fencing enough for
two or three hundred acre farms, shows Il big
waste somewhere, and it is not difficult to see
where. thousand acre farm offers nearly as
many advantages in proportion over ten one
hundred acre farms as hundred acre farm Of
ferS over the ten acre ones.
Modern machinery is built to suit the modern
farm, but when farms are laid of ten miles
square machinery will be built to suit them.
Then we shall demand the steam plough, the
steam cultivator, steam seed sower, etc, with
which one engineer and fireman can do more
farming than a hundred men with double horse
teams. Here will be Il saving in help, cost OF
machines and repairs and cost and risk of loss
on power, and the steam machine requires no
feed during idleneSS. Small farmers do not de-
mand and cannot afford such machinery This
shows us why a cooperative colony should have
one large farm and farmed as one farm instead
Vi ulN NllHS large tract INTO small farms To be
worked by them conjointly. Farmers are
learning that there are as many kinds of soil As
there are kinds of produce and that each article
can best be grown on its favoritc soil. Also
that almost any plot of land in Maine large
enough for a farm contains more than one kind
of soil; and some of them 4 very large variety.
We know too that men by nature are speciality
farmers. One farmer knows how to make a
success OH corn, but cabbages puzzle him.
Another thoroughly handles the cabbage but on
corn is a failure. These facts show us that we
cannot divide the earth into small farms sue
ccssfully, for the man who raised cranberrics
might find half his farm useless. To succeed
he must have access to all the bogS, and ii chance
to change bogs until he finds the best ones for
his favoritc cranberry. Only by holding one
large tract as one property will give this oppor-
tunty. 1t is only the speciality farmers who
produce the high grade articles and get the big
gest yield per acre. A hundred shoemakers
working together, each making different part
of the shoe. will produce ten times more shoes
than the hundred could make working separ-
ately, each making whole shoe, and there is
just as much reason for dividing farming into
special parts as there is for dividing the making
of shoe into parts. 1t is simply the natural
reward of cooperation.
Women are surprised when you tell them
that one girl with machinery can cook more
and better than hundred can with their kitch-
en- tiNings now in use. And that the machinery
the one girl will use will not cost half as much
as the hundred stoves and fiXings that the hum
dred are now using, and will not require more
than one tenth of the fuel. And that the one
girl will not use one-half the physical or mental