Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 February 1887 — Co-operation Among English Workingmen. [ARTICLE]

Co-operation Among English Workingmen.

The co-operative movement began about forty years ago. In 1844 the twenty-eight Rochdale pioneeers started a Lttle store on the principle of dividing profits according to the amount of purchases. Their business capital was no more than £2B, which had been most carefully collected and hoarded. From these humble beginnings the movement has spread among a vast number of the working classes throughout England and Scotland. In its present condition it is no doubt open to some criticism, but not even Robert Owen and the Christian socialists, including F. D. Maurice, C. Kingsley, T. Hughes Ludlow, and E. A ansittart Neil, who urged the importance of the matter, could possibly have hoped at the time that cooperation would ever reach its present development. A few figures will perhaps be useful as showing the extent to which the work has spread. In 1862 the amount of sales by co-opera-tive societies in the United Kingdom was less than £2,500,000. In 1883 (the last returns made out) the sales amounted to more than £28,000,000, the number of societies which made returns of their business to the Central Board was 1,157, and the total profits amounted to £2,500,000, and the money applied to education amounted to nearly £16,000. In the twenty years (1862-82) the total sales amounted to £275,250,000, and the profits to nearly £22,000,000. All this, it must be remembered. is workingmen’s money, and the whole of this business is managed by workingmen themselves, or through representatives whom they have elected from their own numbers. To show more clearly what an immense hold co-operation has over certain districts, the fact may be mentioned that in the county of Durham the members of co-operative societies amount to more than 30 per cent, of the total population; in Yorkshire, to 27 per cent.; in Lancashire, to 27 per cent.; in Cumberland, to 24 per cent.; and in Northumberland, to 22| per cent. Thus, in some of the great centers of English industry, a large proportion of the working classes are attached to the movement. At present the societies are larger and more numerous in the north than in the south.— Harper's Magazine.