The Advocate and news., 1898-11-16

/ lGy-dAG uldhlll6 nGW AVNOAho Va oNNNNoos
The English Wholesale passes, for the
first time in its history, the $15,OOO 900
mark OF business in one quarter, and the
annual turnover of its bank becomes
5000, 100000 The Scottish Wholesale
shows a gain of nearly go per cent. in it's
workshops. The Leicester Equity boot
and shoe works add to their capacity rs
per cent In Ireland in the year the num-
ber of Creameries rises from "a to 13l,
and of the peoples banks from 3 to 10,
The statistics in the appendix show the
march. The movement Is pressing for
ward into fresh enterprises in old fields
and ventures in new worlds like farm
ing The renaissance Of the labor CO.
partnership ideas of the founders evil
dences that there Is a moral expansion as
well as a material.
Can we do nothing like this in Ameri-
ca? Except building societies and mu
tual insurance, cooperation has been
mainly distributive with no such sue
cesses as the great stores Of Great Britain
to boast. The Cooperative Union Of
America, of Cambridge, Mass, is fed
Grafton Of societies to promote here "the
Rochdale plan, devoted to the cause Of
distributive cooperation" and 1t pub
fishes, at so cents year, the American
Cooperative News OF cooperative pro-
duction, outside such enterprises as the
cooperative creameries east and west,
there is little; and of production Of the
co-partnership sort, practically nothing,
except so far as the labor exchanges are
under that head. But in all these direc-
tiOns, much faithful, earnest pioneering
is being done, the indispensable prelim-
mary, as foreign experience shows, Of
success. have written the story Of La
Dor Copartnership in the hope that it
might give encouragement to the CO.
operative spirit Of this country, none the
less If our lines Of progress should have
to difRerentiate themselves from those
taken abroad
We are a different people from the
English, and our circumstances are diff.
ferent When the English cooperative
movement struck its present roots, the
consolidation of industry had hardly be-
gun; while to-day, in America, it does
not seem to have much farther to go to
bring us to the consummation of an in
dustrial feudalism which will make i'm
possible any individual, or even co-op-
erative initiative or independence. Many
Of the American students and workers
feel faintheartedly that the development
Of the trusts makes 1t hopeless for CO.
operation to obtain that foothOld here
which the English workmen succeeded
in obtaining generation ago. There is,
tOO tho failing among manu- NJ uc thof
Americans are not cooperative people;
that, as has been said, our genius is more
for co-talking than for co-WOrking. But
this is the creates tot mistakes. Amer
lea has been doing a cooperative work
even more remarkable than that Of Eng
land. Each nation has followed It's ge-
MUS on the lines of greatest need and
least resistance. English cooperation
has been Industrial; our has been politi-
cal. The achievement Of America in
uniting In one common life and one CO.
operative citizenship the African and the
European, and even Asiatic types, which
elsewhere glare at each other with hatred
across frontiers Of bayonets, is the great
est triumph Of cooperation which the
history of civilization has yet shown.
OOIApdACu Will JllAbp buC Ihoh VI
getting the men of one trade and one
locality to unite in so simple a social
function as purchasing or making COM
modities was easy. AS America advances
from political cooperation to industrial,
its accomplishment is likely to be as
much grander than that Of Great Britain
as the task is more difficult on account of
territory, racial variance, and the new
ness of social life. There is some reason
to expect that the American evolution in
cooperation will be partly along the
lines OF colonization and the establish
ment Of new industries. The American Is
coIonizer. All Americans are colonists
from abroad. The West was colonized
from the East We colonized California
and we are now colonizing Alaska One
hears to-day In every direction in Amer
II