1863.] COÖPERATION. 217 more business, obtaining greater profits, and paying larger dividends than ever. During the severest distress, when there was a kind of run on them for money, there was never the slightest hesitation or delay in paying those who wished to withdraw their money in accordance with the rules of the societies. And this was the case not in Rochdale only, but in almost every part of the manufacturing districts in which coöperative societies had been founded on the Rochdale model. In the year 1864 there was a new and important development of the coöperative principle. A wholesale coöperative society, established in Balloon-street, Manchester, commenced business on the 15th of March, supplying the different coöperative societies throughout the North of England. This society was a new step in the progress of coöperation, tending to connect the different coöperative societies disseminated throughout the North of England. The principle described by the term 'coöperation,' has been more recently adopted by the members of the civil service in the metropolis. It has been extended, though not yet with marked success, to agriculture; to which, however, it seems peculiarly applicable, combining the advantages which have arisen from the extreme subdivision of properties in France with those which have resulted from the employment of large capitals in carrying out agricultural operations and improvements in England. It does not fall within the sphere of this work to endeavour to forecast what the future of coöperation may be; but it is quite within its province to endeavour to interpret the true character and tendencies of the movement; and the writer of this work submits that its scope has been most fully described by the phrase which the genius of an eminent French writer has employed-'the organisation of labour;' a phrase which has been supposed to indicate something dangerous and revolutionary, but which really has no such import; meaning, in fact, that a time is coming when the constant wants of a continually increasing population will have to be met by a disciplining of industry, under which each capital will find its best employment, and each man will have the place appointed to him which he is the most competent to fill, and the work assigned to him which he can best perform to his own advantage as well as to the general benefit of the community. It is an idle fear that coöperation will attack property, or try to destroy large capitals. Coöperation, by giving every man a property of his own, makes it the interest of every man to uphold the sacredness of property; by making every man to a certain extent a capitalist, it leads him to respect capital, and to perceive that if there are some enterprises that can be well and safely conducted by a number of small capitalists combining their resources to make a large capital, there are many others in which it is essential that the capital should be concentrated in the hands of a single individual, able to act on his own responsibility. By making the same man at once capitalist and workman, employer and employed, coöperation enables him to comprehend and make allowance for the difficulties of the employer's position, and in this way tends to palliate, if not altogether to remove, those unhappy trade disputes which have often been attended with most mischievous consequences to the population of the manufacturing districts. In the next place, coöperation has supplied the manufacturing operative with a means of mental development and self-education greatly needed, and of the very highest importance. It has been remarked, and with great truth, that the continued repetition of the same operation, carried on throughout the greater part of a lifetime by the factory operative has an evident tendency, unless it is very strongly counteracted, to produce in him a spirit of detail calculated to lower and contract the understanding. Now coöperation provides an antidote to this evil. The man whose life is spent in making the heads for pins or in watching the flight of the shuttle as it carries the thread backwards and forwards across the loom-finds himself at the meetings of his cooperative society in the position of a partner in a great concern, which extends its operations to the uttermost ends of the earth, and is thus led to combine a spirit of widelyextended generality with skill and excellence in detail. The cooperative society of Rochdale was originally established under the Friendly-Societies act; and those who took it for a model imitated it in that respect. But as the society increased in magnitude, it was found that the act, designed as it originally was for societies of much smaller dimensions and of a very different character, seri 1863.] COÖPERATION. 219 ously cramped and impeded the operations of those coöperative societies that took advantage of its provisions. It therefore became a question with the managers of the Rochdale and other coöperative societies whether they should place themselves under the Limited-Liabilities act, or try to procure such amendments of that statute as would adapt it to their purpose. They chose the latter course, chiefly because the former would have involved them in much trouble in reference to the collection and payment of income-tax. They therefore determined to apply to parliament for such amendments of the Friendly-Societies act as would adapt it to meet the circumstances of coöperative societies. Several leading and influential members of parliament aided them in the attainment of this object. Foremost among these was the late Mr. Sotheron Estcourt, who took charge of their bill, showed a very lively interest in the matter, and bestowed great pains in promoting the objects and wishes of his coöperative clients. Before the year 1852 all coöperative societies, following the example of the Rochdale society, were enrolled under the Friendly-Societies act, which prevented them from dealing with any persons except their own members. In that year they obtained an act entitled the 'Industrial and Provident Societies act, 1852,' giving power to societies to carry on trade as general dealers, and to sell to non-members, but still maintaining certain disabilities, among which was that of limiting their occupation of land to a single acre. In 1855 the act of 1852 was amended by another act, which gave them some farther powers, but still limited them to a single acre. In 1862 another act was passed which was styled the 'Industrial and Provident Societies act, 1862,' and enabled them to hold more than an acre of land, thus putting coöperative societies nearly on the same footing as joint-stock limited-liability companies. In 1867 another act was passed, entitled the 'Industrial and Provident Societies act, 1867;' interpreting some ambiguous clauses of the preceding act, mainly relating to the payment of income-tax by the members of coöperative societies. Since this period the act of 1862 has undergone a farther amendment, by which the societies are allowed to hold land to any amount they may find necessary, to trade in land, to build, and to mortgage. Thus slowly and gradually has the legislature permitted to these societies the same full liberty of trading which it had long before accorded to individuals, but of which, for want of capital, individuals belonging to the class that has created these societies could not fully avail themselves. CHAPTER IV. THE PALMERSTON MINISTRY. DURING the last weeks of 1862 and the commencement of 1863, London was a prey to a panic caused by criminals known by the name of garrotters. Every newspaper contained accounts of robberies they had committed, either by knocking down their victim with a life-preserver, or depriving him of consciousness by a sudden and skilful application of their fingers to his throat, which promptly brought him to the ground in a state of insensibility. These outrages were committed not in dark lanes or sequestered places, but in Oxford-street, in Piccadilly, in places over which the gas shed a flood of light, and policemen made regular rounds. Such was the panic that these street-robberies caused, that people living in the most frequented part of London were afraid to leave their houses after dark, or, sallied forth armed with revolvers or other means of defence. London was as unsafe in the winter of 1862 as it had been in the days of Charles the Second; and the public fear exaggerated the danger, so that at night the streets were nearly empty, the places of amusement deserted, and every man as he walked along eyed his fellow-passengers with suspicion, and prepared himself for a life-and-death struggle. The papers exhorted the public to defend themselves without scruple or hesitation against these assaults. The art of boxing was revived, and became a part of fashionable education; life-preservers, sword-sticks, daggers, revolvers, and large fierce dogs, were in great request. The blame of this state of things was cast on ticket-of-leave men and the ticket-of-leave system. It was urged that our treatment of convicts was much too indulgent; that the lot of the criminal was far preferable to that of the pauper and of the honest labourer; and so the question, 'What is to be done with our |