Industrial freedom. [volume] (Edison, Wash.) 1898-1???, 1898-05-07
COOPERATIVE COLONIES.
BY BIGE EDDY.
(written for Industrial Frecdom.)

written for Industrial Frecdom)
With all Difference to Patrick Hen
ry, | believe we may Judge of the
future otherwise than by the past.
To be sure, it were folly to ignore the
lessons of the past: but if history is to
repeat itself, as conservatives are so
fond of asserting. few of us would
care to take the trouble to make it.
If the future Is to contain no grander
growth, no enlarged freedom for
mankind, then is there no meaning in
the words evolution, advancement,
progress.
! believe in complete governmental
corporations; in it's justice; in it's
practicability. do not believe that
isolated cooperation is substitute
for it, but do believe it can be made
an excellent means to this very de-
sirable end.
| believe that, if the promoters of a
colony are actuated by the proper
spirit, and use good business judg-
ment in the selection of location
and the conduct of their affairs, sue
cess is an assured fact.
1t goes without saying that the
spirit necessary for success along this
line is the spirit of cooperation.
cannot conceive of colony working
in harmony and achieving success,
the members of which believe in COM
petitive strife. When a colony goes
to pieces there is no need, as in the
Maine affair, for a board of inquiry
to determine whether the explosion
came from without or from within.
If a colony is actuated by the spir-
it of cooperation its chance of sue
cess is in the same ratio to the chance
of an individual in the same location,
as it's collective capital and produc-
tive power is to that of his. Yes, and
more than this, for both capital and
power may be multiplied many fold
by cooperation, and waste and fric-
tion minimized.
We cannot expect, under present
conditions, that any man with suffi-
cient capital to purchase labor-saving
machinery is going to be satisfied
with ordinary wages. But with col
lective ownership, the full value of
the product may be returned to the
owners, less a sum sufficient to keep
the machinery in repair and to re-
place it when worn out. A colony
properly conducted, need not carry
an idle accumulation of property,
for its productive power is bank up
on which it may safely draw, with
out danger of protest.
Its machinery need not rust out in
idleness because, for domestic pur
poses, it need have no more than
enough to supply the demand.
AS TO the location of Equality"
the first in the Brotherhood's series
Of colonies, though have never seen
it, residence of nine years in vest
ern Washington, together with the
description given of its site by visi-
tors, convinces me that it is an ideal
one. Not oily is the Climate and soil
of producing the largest pos
sible percentage of the necessaries
and Injuries of life, but material is at
hand, from which, by the application
of comparatively inexpensive ma
chinery, articles can be produced
which will sell in the markets of the
world. Thus the money necessary to
purchase the few things which cam
not be produced at home can soon be
obtained, and the future expansion of
the movement be provided for, as the
has been, by the reserves.
The cosmopolitan character of the
Puget Sound population is the best
proof of the adaptability of the eli
mate 10 people of all chimes and
nations.
As to the business management, a
careful study of the principles of the
b. c. c. convinces me that tits lodged
in the only place where SO important
a junction can be safely entrusted,
the majority of those con-
cerned the Brotherhood at large.
Internal dissensicn and jealousy
are most 10 be feared in enterprises
of this kind. The equality guaran-
teed every member of the Brother
hood should, and doubtless will, elm
mate this disturbing element
But best of all, this movement never
overlooks the fact that while The sue
cess Of its colonies means much for
the immediate relief Of large mum
beers OF the telling masses, yet the
grander principle, that Of universal
and worldwide cooperation u the
one towards which We are journeying