Montana labor news., 1937-09-30
SIX AMERICANS TOUR
EUROPEAN (0UNTRIES|
STUDYING The (0-0pS|

Last summer a small party board
ed a ship bound for Europe. The
group comprised six people-Jacob
Baker, Leland Olds, Charles E. Stu
art, Robin Hood, Clifford V. Greg
DRY, and Emily c. Bates-members
of a commission named by President
Roosevelt to find answers to such
questions as these: What had coop
erative enterprise accomplished in
Europe? What was its significance
to us in America? Was it ian eco
nomic device that will usher in a
new era under the banner of de-
mocracy,' or was il, as some claimed,
another Of those fearsome Euro
pean isms' against which we should
quarantine ourselves?"
For 212 months the members of
the official Inquiry on Cooperative
Enterprise" toured England, Scot
land, Ireland, France, Switzerland,
Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Norway,
Sweden, and Finland. At first hand
they observed working conditions in
coop institutions. They interviewed
government officials, industrialists,
consumers-in fact, they button
holed anyone able to throw light on
coop activities.
Once back in America the Com
mission dragged out its trunkloads
of notes and statistics, set to work
digesting this material. Result-the
recent report to the President, a
meaty, 300-page volume on The
Methods and Relationships of Coop
erative Enterprise in Europe, The
Meaning of Cooperative Enterprise
to America, and Cooperation at
Close Range-to quote the headings
of the three main divisions of the
book. More than this, there are fat
appendices chock full of up-to-date
statistics on every phase of this
"middle-way" method of doing bust
ness.
Summing up their findings, the
Commission takes the view that
coop enterprise is neither an eco
nomic bogeyman that would disrupt
our present system of distribution
nor a panacea. The Commission
had this to say: From the things we
learned and the figures we gathered
could be woven an Aladdin tale of
cooperative success. From a differ
ent selection of material could be
built a story Of cooperative plumbers
and mistakes and class antagonism.
1t has been our task to try to tell the
story fairly, to picture accurately a
movement that has its full share of
human errors, but that has brought
new hope, new pride of ownership,
higher standards of living, to a sub
stantial portion of the people Of
western Europe"
The story of European coopera-
tives, the Commission found, is the
story of big business. The report
cites the international Cooperative
Alliance as listing 100000 organiza-
tions in SO countries as coop mem
bers. Estimates give co-ops as serv-
ing approximately 100 million peo-
pie scattered around the globe; bust
ness of consumer co-ops alone tops
80 billion dollars annually. In Czech
oslovakia coop enterprise affects
about 40 per cent Of the population;
in France, 35; in Great Britain, AS;
in Norway, so; in Sweden and Swift
zerland, IS; in Finland as much as
10. In actual numbers the British
consumer movement with its 7,484,-
900 members is largest.
Big business in the ordinary sense
is nothing to set the United States
by the ears. Big business in the CO.
operative way presents a different
picture from the one we know in our
huge department and chain stores.
The Commission points to the differ
ences. Much as the coop store and
the privately run store may look
alike, motive and ownership are diff
ferent. The private merchant tries
to make a profit; the cooperative
store tries to supply its customers
with goods at cost. In private bust
ness each share of stock represents
one vote. In a coop, each member
has one vote, irrespective of amount
of stock owned. In private business
profits go to stockholders; in co-ops
profits are distributed as patron
age refunds" to members in proper
ton to their patronage CATER paying
a small fixed interest to the share
holders and setting aside %reserves).
In these fundamentals, present
day co-ops in Europe stick closely to
the basic doctrines of the original
consumer cooperative society-the
Rochdale Equitable Pioneer Society,
founded in England in 1874. The
report gives these principles as: (1)
Open membership and ownership,
irrespective of race, nationality, poll
tics, or religion; ~ democratic con-
trol-one member, one vote; (3)
limited returns on capital and return
of gains to members through patron
age refunds.
European co-ops have accepted
pretty universally several other