FERDINAND LASSALLE. 
69 
instrument of the social renovation, dreamed of by Lassalle 
and Louis Blanc, viz. the co-operative society of production, 
really practicable, and can it be hoped that, even if generously 
and, if needful, gratuitously aided by the State, it could com 
pete successfully with private enterprises so as to supplant 
them ? This is the essential point on which everything 
depends. 
In a small article, entitled “ The Delusions of Co-operative 
Societies” (1866), M. Cemuschi, who, in order to study this 
question better, had worked three butchers’ shops, points out, 
with that clearness which characterizes all his writings, the 
grave difficulties in the way of the application of the system. 
These are, firstly, the great complexity of the accounts ; and 
secondly, the difficulty of looking after the managers and 
ensuring their honesty and activity. M. Cemuschi quotes the 
following extract from an English pamphlet, “ Checks on Co 
operative Storekeepers:”—“ Among the difficulties encountered 
by the co-operative movement, none has had more disastrous 
consequences than that of finding an efficacious means of 
superintending the accounts of the co-operative stores.” The 
selection of managers, however, is really the great difficulty. 
The head of a private business is directly interested in the 
good administration of his affairs, but the manager is only in 
directly interested. The former, in that he receives the profits, 
will be far more active than the latter, who has a fixed salary. 
There is one essential truth which reformers should never 
forget, namely, that the incentive to production has always 
been, and will always be, personal interest and responsibility. 
Self-devotion has its own place, and a very large one, in life ; 
charity, duty, and patriotism have their heroes and their 
n^artyrs; but, in the factory and in the sphere of material 
interests, these virtues would soon get wearied at seeing idle 
ness and selfishness taking advantage of them. The monk, it 
IS true, works for and enriches his monastery; and communism, 
—See the admirable work of George Howell, “ Conflict of Capital and 
pn» ,1"^' 1878. [See also a little book, full of information on the subject, 
nuued Working Men Co-operators," by Arthur H. Dyke Acland and 
Lond!^'" members of the Central Co-operative Board),