ries families on credit in the event of sickness or unemployment, organizes banking, provides housing, recreations, clubhouses, medical and nursing care, hospitals and sanitariums. And beyond this there is still a greater benefit which accrues to the cooperator. It is not alone that the things he needs are made more easily accessible to him; that he is freed from the dangers and costs of diseased and adulterated food; that he is spared exploitation by the agencies of profiteering; that pensions, insurance and housing are made possible for him; that recreations, art and education are rendered accessible. Cooperation does a greater thing than all these. It awakens in the soul of man a new spirit. It makes him a co-operator. It takes hold of the fundamental and primitive instincts-to help one's fellow man, to be kind, to be generous, to render mutual aid-and encourages them. It organizes a society in which people learn by practice that the concern of one is the concern of all, and that no man can cheat or be cheated without his neighbor also suffering.

What has co-operation done? In England in 1844 twenty-eight poor weavers with no better destiny than the poorhouse before them, organized the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society, with a store with only four commodities, keeping open only in the evening. They had the vision and the philosophy. From that small beginning there has never been a recession now for threequarters of a century. Year after year unfailing success has crowned the movement. Today the co-operative movement in Great Britain embraces one-third of the total population. For forty years the movement has been growing five times faster than the population has increased. During the war the increase has been ten times faster.

At the present time, co-operative societies of Great Britain distribute $1,000,000,000 worth of commodities to their members annually. The "profit" or, more prop. erly speaking, the savings to their members amount to $100,000,000 a year. Of this amount $65,000,000 is returned in cash to the members in the form of "dividends." The British Wholesale Society supplies 1200 societies. It owns its own steamships. It has fourteen great warehouses. It gives lavishly of its great resources toward welfare work. It is the largest purchaser of Canadian wheat in the world. Its eight flour mills are the largest in Great Britain. These mills produce thirty-five tons of flour every hour for the people who own the mills. The co-operators of Glasgow own the largest bakery in the world. The British Co-operative Wholesale owns sixty-five fac

tories. Their soap works make 500 tons of soap a week. They produce 5,000,000 pairs of boots annually. They conduct three great printing plants. Their 24,000 acres of farms in England produce vast quantities of dairy products, fruit and vegetables. They have recently purchased 10,000 acres of the best wheat lands in Canada. They own their own coal mines. Their last purchase was the Shilbottle coal mine, bought only during the past year. They own 2300 acres of tea plantations in Ceylon and vineyards in Spain. In Africa they control vast tracts of land for the production of olives from which oil for their soap factories is procured.

Their

These organizations of consumersspringing from the little society of Rochdale now bring their own currants from Greece to be made into plum puddings in their own factories. The British Co-operators now produce almost every commodity. Watches, furniture, tinware, machinery, clothing, tobacco, chemicals, leather goods, corsets and brushes are among their products. Their total output is five times greater than that of the private manufacturers in the manufacturers' association. welfare work embraces almost branch of human service. They conduct life saving stations on the coast, and administer large funds for the relief of sufferers from famine and unemployment. Their banking department is next to the Bank of England in importance. One-half of the industrial life and accident insurance business in Great Britain is done by the Cooperative Society, and at one-tenth of the cost which the profit-making companies pay.

every

75,000,000, which is nearly one-half of the population. The People's Co-operative Bank in Moscow does a business of $1,000,000,000 yearly.

The Belgian Co-operative Movement is peculiar. The surplus savings are not returnable to the members in the form of cash but are employed for social welfare purposes. Old age pensions, life insurance, insurance against sickness and unemployment, maternity benefits, and medical and nursing care are provided. Those beautiful buildings in Belgium, "the houses of the people," are owned by the co-operative societies. They are community centers, used for meetings, dramatic presentations, forums, schools and recreations.

All of the countries of Europe except Turkey have progressive co-operative movements. In Denmark, more than threefourths of the population are embraced in co-operative societies. This little country is rapidly becoming a nation of co-operators and is already developing a superior culture.

During the war the co-operative movement has saved the people of the suffering countries from being quite at the mercy of the profiteers. At the beginning of the war when private tradesmen in England had put up the price of sugar to 12 cents a pound the co-operative societies continued to sell it to their members at 5 cents a pound, and people stood in lines waiting to join these societies. The countries which had a co-operative movement and in which the profiteers did not dominate, appointed the co-operators to administer food control. This was done in Switzerland, Denmark, and Holland.

Russia did it immediately after the revolution. France, Germany and Austria have more recently done it. The French Government has this year gone so far as to promote the organization of cooperative societies among the soldiers. These societies run their motor vans among the camps and supply the soldiers with the things which formerly private tradesmen had made profits of from 20 to 200 per cent in supplying.

In America we have a rapidly developing movement. While there are all kinds of spurious co-operative organizations, there are fully 1000 true co-operative distributive societies. There are splendid groups of societies in the Northwest and throughout the Northern States. Another group has developed about the United Mine Workers in the Central States. In Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio are some of the oldest and most successful societies. Throughout the rest of the country are scattered organizations. The Southern

States and Eastern States are poorest in co-operation.

Aside from these distributive societies in the United States, there are five cooperative wholesale organizations, one of which has gone into manufacturing. This wholesale organization at Seattle, Washington, has organized a grist mill and two milk condenseries. It also conducts a successful laundry.

A co-operative society is started by a group of people, preferably belonging to organized labor, each making a contribution toward the share capital. Shares usually are placed at a valuation of from $5.00 to $25.00. Some societies charge less, some more. Commodities are bought at wholesale and sold at the prevailing retail market price. Out of the surplus savings which accumulate, a certain percentage is used to pay interest on capital, a certain amount is set aside as a reserve fund, part is appropriated for education and propaganda, and the balance is either used for general welfare purposes or is paid back to the members as a savings-return. In Great Britain for the average family this saving usually suffices to pay the rent. This means that by belonging to the co-operative society the society gives house rent free. societies require that only a small deposit be paid down to join. In England it is 25 cents. The savings returns or "dividends" as they are called, are then applied to the payment for the share until it is fully paid for.

Most

The savings "dividend" is usually declared quarterly. The more the family buys at the store the more money it gets back at the end of the quarter. The store should not sell on credit. The society should maintain active committees on management, and on education and recreations. No society should start without first getting advice and instructions from some other successful society of some central organization. This is the function of the Cooperative League of America.

People who are capable of solidarity should seize upon this great growing movement and make it an instrument for their economic redemption.

Organized labor does not seek to compel its membership to follow any set line of economic thought. It enunciates certair theories, but farther than that it does not attempt to go. It does believe that left to himself, the individual will work out what he thinks is to his best interest. Freedom for the individual has ever been the watchword of the movement, and ordered along this line the working masses collectively will finally come to a common ground of belief.

I

N advance of the peace conference, Chairman E. M. Hurley of the United States Shipping Board, now in Europe, is endeavoring to bring about an agreement among the great maritime nations for the standardization of wages and working conditions of seamen. America's advanced laws and standards for the protection of seamen, which include insurance benefits, will be urged for universal adoption.

This announcement from Washington is being received with more than ordinary interest, as giving official significance to the movement in allied countries, growing out of the war, for international uniformity of legislation to safeguard the health and efficiency of workers.

In the midst of the war several international labor conferences have insisted that a number of protective labor standards be embodied in the peace treaty-a request formulated by representative workmen in France.

That all countries agree to establish minimum standards of social insurance protection was prominently urged at these con

ferences and endorsed by labor representatives of all the principal European countries, it is pointed out in a bulletin just issued by the American Association for Labor Legislation.

"The American labor movement," it states, "recently submitted preliminary peace treaty proposals, including ‘labor's bill of rights,' recognition of the basic eighthour day and prohibition of child labor. Meanwhile more than forty state and national labor organizations in this country have gone on record for more complete protection through the various forms of social insurance."

The British worker, for example, is already protected by workmen's insurance against industrial accidents, invalidity, old age, unemployment, and sickness, while the American worker is as yet only partially covered by industrial accident insurance.

State Commissions at Work.

Several states now have official commissions investigating sickness conditions among wage earners, with a view to health insurance legislation. Pennsylvania has two commissions, one on old-age insurance and

another on health insurance, while in Ohio a single commission is studying both of these forms of social insurance. Other states having legislative commissions at work on social health insurance, as the next step in the United States following workmen's compensation, include New Jersey, California, Wisconsin, Connecticut and Illinois.

"Many of our people are still going cheerfully on with the social ideals and ideas of the past generation," recently wrote a former representative of large manufacturing interests, now in the War Department. "Unless we make very substantial progress along the line of health insurance, we shall find ourselves under very serious handicaps in world competition at the conclusion of the war."

Prominent federal immigation officials declare that between two and three million

people will leave America to return to Europe as soon as passage on ocean steamships can be secured. This possibility has given rise to increased concern over protective measures that will conserve every ounce of available labor supply to keep American industry abreast of the coming demands upon it to aid in the reconstruction of stricken countries.

During the war protective standards for labor won state and federal recognition as a sound basis upon which to secure increased output and to maintain the fitness and efficiency of the industrial army. With the return of peace, the United States, in preparing for the coming tests of economic self-reliance, is now called upon to adopt legislative protections for the workers, at least equal to the minimum protection extended to labor in allied countries, again our friendly rivals in the world's markets.

Imperialists, militarists and neolithic congressmen and ante-bellum minded statesmen and diplomats who are busily engaged in drawing plans for a restoration of national rivalries, big armaments and conscript armies of the kind that produced the late unlamented holocaust had better hide the plans. They will be considered incriminating evidence if found in anyone's personal belongings.

The new world, the world that was born in the travail of the last four years will not be managed by any of these. It is not their child to train. That world is the world of labor and labor will manage it.

Labor is getting ready for the job everywhere. The membership of British trade unions increased from 2,000,000 to 5,000,000 during the war. Two out of the five delegates that will represent the British Empire at the peace congress are trade unionists.

King Albert's new government contains six clericals, two liberals and five Socialists. His first official statement was a promise of universal suffrage. This insures a labor victory at the next election.

President Wilson was welcomed to the soil of France by a Socialist mayor of Brest. He was hailed upon his arrival in Paris by the representatives of the unions and the Socialists as the champion of labor's peace program. He will sit at the peace table with a union member of the French peace delegation.

It appears that only Japan and the United States will be without labor representatives at the peace congress.

Labor is going to write the terms of peace. It sketched the outline of them when it made its demands at the Inter-Allied Labor and Socialist conferences held during the war. At both of these it laid down terms practically identical with those outlined by President Wilson. Today there are few who deny that these will prevail.

Labor is unanimous for a league of peace and universal disarmament. This is respectfully referred to those antiquated mentalities who have been busily explaining President Wilson's great mistake in urging such an unpopular policy upon unwilling allies.