carries on a farm, a cotton-factory, a corn-mill, a building society, a life-insurance and burial society; it owns a reading-room, and a library; it has lately taken a conspicuous part in the public improvements of the town of Rochdale, and as its proudest monument can point to a whole community raised in morals and intelligence no less than in comfort.
The Weak Side op Co-operative Stores, and its Cause.
But there is another side to the picture. The opponents of the movement can tell us of many co-operative stores and associations that have failed. The members have lost their interest; their agents and clerks have been dishonest, careless, incapable, etc. But this is not surprising. The only reason that retail traders find business at all is, that they save the working community trouble by collecting, from the different places where they are produced, the silks, woollens, cottons, the meats, vegetables, and grains, that it needs for its food and clothing. If the retail trader, either singly or in league with the manufacturer, adulterate his goods, or if he make an intolerable profit upon them, the community, as in the case of the Rochdale Pioneers, may combine against him and supersede him. But the attempt is contrary to the modern idea of the division of labour. The men who compose the working community have each their particular craft or profession to attend to. One is a carpenter, another a doctor, etc. To organize and look after a co-operative store is, in fact, to undertake another business, and most men would rather pay the difference than be distracted from their own pursuits, and have the trouble of thinking about it. Thus, I think, that, in the long run, co-operative store-keeping will fail, and things come round again to just where they are now, unless co-operative housekeeping steps in to take its place, and to carry this idea to complete and noble fulfilment.
How this can be done I shall submit to the judgment of practical women in the next chapter.
