thousand, varying in method of organization from a small craft to a large industrial union enrolling everyone skilled and unskilled of "all grades" in an industry. After the war, in 1920, the Miners' Federation numbered some 900,000. The National Union of Railwaymen, seeking to unite all the workers in a single industry on a twentieth century "new model," reported 481,000; the Engineering Union 453,603, and the Agricultural Laborers' Union over 200,000 in the same year.

During the present trade depression with some two millions unemployed the trade unions are passing through a difficult period. Their membership fell from over eight to less than five millions by the end of 1923. Labor throughout the continent of Europe must face a period of depression for several years owing to disturbed political and economic conditions, the opposition of employers and governments, and the division in its own ranks caused by Moscow.

2. The Co-operative Movement in Britain seeks to organize the workers as consumers, as the trade unions seek to protect them as producers. It looks back to Robert Owen, the first great factory reformer, as its founder, in his experiment begun in 1799. He endeavored to substitute co-operation for competition and industrial democracy for autocracy. But the successful type of a consumers' cooperative society was started at Rochdale in 1844. Here twenty-eight poor flannel weavers saved their pennies to collect their little store of capital of one pound each, or a total of $140.00, and took turns tending their first little shop. They were unconsciously beginning one of the great financial and social movements of history. Their experiment finally improved the condition of millions of working men, enabling them to obtain cheap provisions, to escape from penury and debt, to educate themselves, and to extend their operations from distribution to manufac

turing, building, banking, insurance and wholesale production.1

Where others had failed The Rochdale Equitable Pioneers succeeded by a new method of dealing with their profits or surplus by a "dividend on purchases." After paying interest of five per cent or less on their share capital, all profit was divided between the members in proportion to their purchases. This profit was credited to each member and capitalized until his share amounted to five pounds. This plan of consumers' co-operatives owned by the purchasers spread rapidly over England, and later over the continent of Europe and the rest of the world.

The British Co-operatives now own their own wheat lands in Canada, their tea estates in Ceylon, their own cotton mills, clothing and furniture factories, fishing fleets, dairy farms, ships, stores, banks and insurance companies." They have their own libraries and educational facilities. Beginning with twenty-eight poor weavers less than eighty years ago, they have raised the standard of living not only for their 4,598,737 members, but with their families for over sixteen millions of people. Thus the Co-operatives already supply more than a third of the people of Britain with about half of the food they buy and a third of their 'cloth and furniture. They employ over 187,979 workers. Already the four and a half million co-operators in Great Britain possess nearly five hundred million dollars in cap

1 See "Co-operation and the Future of Industry," by Leonard S. Woolf. The Consumers Co-operative Movement, Sidney and Beatrice Webb. The Story of the Co-operative Wholesale Society 1863-1913. The People's Year Book, 1923, issued annually.

2 The Co-operative Movement in Britain consists chiefly of organizations of consumers rather than of producers. After the war, in 1921, of 1,472 co-operatives, 1,352 were societies of consumers and only 102 of producers. The membership of the former was 4,548,557 and their trade approximately $1,000,000,000, while the membership of the latter was but 38,360 and their trade some $30,000,000. Peoples' Year Book, 1923, p. 17.

ital, in addition to much larger sums already declared in dividends to members. They do an annual business of a billion and a half dollars, or nearly as much as the United States Steel Corporation. Directors who are full-time salaried officials are rendering highly efficient service at salaries of little more than $2,500 a year. They are at least as efficient as members of competing systems who claim that men will not do good work except for high profits.

According to the Co-operative Peoples' Year Book for 1923 there are already some 32,000,000 co-operative members in the thirty principal countries of the world, representing with their families nearly 150,000,000 people, or nearly one-tenth of the entire population of the world. Thus in Russia after forty years of struggle against opposition under the Czarist régime, the 1,000 societies in 1905 had grown in 1919 to 25,000 societies claiming a membership of some 12,000,000. Russia and several other countries, however, suffered a temporary decline in membership in the period of depression which followed the war.

The Co-operative Movement succeeded because it discovered a great law of life. It was based on the principle of co-operation instead of competition, substituting industrial democracy for autocratic control, and the common welfare of all, for the private profit of the few. It is a movement of, by and for the working people. Its motto is "All for each and each for all." Its aim is not merely financial profit but the development of personality, in building a community of free men based upon economic independence, from the humble beginning of a common grocery store. The simple method of a dividend on purchases, instead of on stock or share capital, secures democratic ownership and control, keeps the movement always expanding, with the door ever open for new comers upon

a basis of equal opportunity, and avoids the danger of a monopolistic trust, or an exclusive close corporation. All members have an equal vote and no ownership of a larger amount of share capital gives any additional influence.

Experience points toward the ever widening integration of the community, organized co-operatively as consumers and citizens. The world has not yet begun to explore the possibilities of co-operation.

3. The Labor Party as the political expression of the movement seeks to unite both producers and consumers in a democratic political state, based upon the trade unions which seek to build up a democracy of producers, and the co-operatives as a community chiefly of consumers.

In 1892 Keir Hardie, of the Miners' Federation, was elected to the House of Commons as the first independent labor member. The following year, in 1893, the Independent Labor Party was formed and the present Labor Party in 1906. The remarkable growth of the party is shown by the number of candidates elected to Parliament and the votes polled from year to year. In 1900 Labor elected two members to the House of Commons, polling a total vote of 62,698. In 1922 it polled more than four and a quarter million, or one-third of all the votes cast in Great Britain. Labor now has 144 seats in the House of Commons and is officially recognized as "His Majesty's Opposition," being prepared to form an alternative ministry to take over the government whenever called upon. It is generally conceded that labor will probably be the government of Britain

In September, 1923, the 615 seats in the House of Commons were divided as follows: Conservatives 333, Labor 144, Liberals 61, National Liberals 56, Communists 1, Others 20.

within a few years. To do this they must transform their present minority of one-third to a majority of something like two-thirds of the national votes.

The aims of Labor are both practical and idealistic, seeking the best possible conditions under the existing system, and ultimately changing the industrial system by establishing in industry and society such democratic conditions and relations as will satisfy the legitimate aspirations of the workers and most benefit the whole of society. The aims of the Labor Party are explicitly stated in Labor and the New Social Order in its four pillars:

1. The Universal Enforcement of the National Minimum. 2. The Democratic Control of Industry.

3. Revolution in National Finance.

4. Surplus Wealth for the Common Good.

By a National Minimum is meant the securing to every member of the community all the requisites of healthy life and worthy citizenship, resisting every movement for degradation of the workers' standard of life by forced unemployment, sweated labor, etc.

The Labor Party aims at democracy in industry as well as in government, looking toward democratic control of industry through the direct participation of trade unions in its management. It advocates more personal property rather than less, but it stands for the ultimate nationalization of mines, railways, canals and of the production of electricity for cheap power, light and heat. The nationalization of the mines was advocated by the Coal Commission appointed by the Lloyd George Government. If this is tried and proves successful, the nationalization of other services may be attempted.

The Labor Party also demands a revision of national finance. The national debt now amounts to over $36,000,000,000. To meet the annual interest on this debt consumes