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SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
minster Review * expressed a similar idea. It would hardly 
augur well for the future of profit-sharing if it were forced upon 
employers by unionist strikes; but if the Trades Unions 
pronounced emphatically in its favour, it is probable that many 
employers would be encouraged to give it a fair trial, and if 
the system was found to work well, it would gradually win its 
way to general adoption. Indeed, in more ways than one there 
is much to be hoped from an understanding between Co- 
operators and Trades Unionists. The two bodies are to a 
large extent composed of the same individuals, and they have 
fundamentally the same end in view, namely, the material 
and moral elevation of the working men who join them ; 
though the means which they employ are very different. 
If Trades Unions would combine with the Co-operative organi 
zation and devote some of their capital to promoting Co 
operative production and making it successful, they would be 
doing much towards the emancipation of the wage-earner in 
the only complete manner, namely, by making him his own 
employer. There are not wanting indications that the leaders 
of the Unionists are fully alive to the importance of the Co 
operative movement, and are prepared to recommend any 
assistance in their power to its development. 
I have introduced this brief notice of the Co-operative 
movement, in a chapter concerned with Socialism, because 
I am convinced that in the development of this movement, 
especially on its productive side, and in the wide extension of 
the system of profit-sharing, will be found the most promising, 
the most just, and the most permanently efficacious means of 
putting an end to the antagonism between employers and 
employed, and of overcoming the worst of those evils of our 
present industrial system which Socialism, in all its forms, has 
arisen to attack. If it be said that when Co-operation becomes 
general the old evils will arise again under the form of com 
petition between the different societies, I think it may be 
answered that some competition there will probably be, and in 
the interest of the consumer, that is to say, of everybody, it is 
* See the article entitled “ Co-operation or Spoliation,” in the number 
for April, 1884.