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SOCIALISM  IN  ENGLAND.

figures  include  the  productive  and  the  wholesale  societies  as
well  as  the  distributive  stores,  but,  as  yet,  the  productive
societies  bear  a  small  proportion  to  the  others.  According  to
the  returns  sent  in  for  1883,  there  were  thirty-four  productive
societies,  including  ten  corn-mills,  doing  an  annual  business  of
over  ^1,720,000.  Their  aggregate  capital  was  a  little  over
half  a  million,  and  their  profits  upon  this  were  ;¿’61,000,  or  an
average,  after  covering  all  losses,  of  twelve  per  cent.  From
fifteen  to  eighteen  of  these  productive  societies  are  known  to
be  based  upon  the  principle  of  copartnership  with  the  workers
in  shares,  in  profits,  and  in  management.
Co-operative  distribution,  useful  work  as  it  is  in  many  ways
doing,  will  never  of  itself  create  a  new  industrial  order,  will
never  make  the  workman  his  own  employer.  It  is,  however,  a
valuable  means  towards  that  end.  It  habituates  working  men
to  thrift,  it  teaches  them  business  habits,  it  inspires  them  with
mutual  confidence,  it  is  an  ever-growing  moral  and  intellectual
educational  agency,  and  it  promotes  “  the  saving  of  joint  capital
by  joint  action  for  joint  purposes.”  One  of  the  most  important
of  these  joint  purposes  is  the  establishment  of  productive  cooperative ­
  enterprises.  There  are  considerable  differences  of
opinion  both  as  to  the  principles  upon  which  such  productive
enterprises  should  be  founded,  and  as  to  the  best  agencies  for
carrying  them  on.  Into  these  questions  I  cannot  enter  here,
but  I  may  be  permitted  to  express  the  hope  that  whatever  plan
is  ultimately  adopted,  wherever  the  distinction  of  employer  and
employed  remains,  the  co-operative  employers  will  see  their
way  to  giving  their  workmen  a  direct  interest  in  the  results  of
their  labour,  otherwise  the  most  important  principle  of  true
co-operation  will  be  infringed.  How  can  working  men  expect
employers  to  admit  them  to  a  participation  in  profits,  if  they
themselves,  in  their  capacity  of  employers,  “  do  not  as  they
would  be  done  by?”*
Strictly  speaking,  the  term  “  Co-operative  Production  ”
*  Why  Socialist  employers,  who  express  such  virtuous  indignation  at  the
“  wage-slave”  system,  and  who  think  that  profits  are  the  produce  of  unpaid
labour,  do  not  adopt  this  principle,  if  only  as  a  pis-aller,  is—for  them  to
explain.