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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  Cooperators
  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  organization ­
  and  devote  some  of  their  capital  to  promoting  Cooperative ­
  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  Cooperative ­
  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  competition ­
  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.