Labour and the Co-operative Movement By rejecting a proposal to
merge its electoral organisa, Lion with that of the Labour Party, the Co-operative Conference has once again emphasised its independence. It is not indeed complete, and. speakers at the Conference were: anxious to. insist on the harmony between the Co-operative and the Labour movements, but several of the debates showed that the Conference's support of some points of Labour policy was by no means whole-hearted. But such disagreement is not the cause of the Co- operators' .anxiety to maintain their political inde- pendence. • The Co-operative movement is not.a political movement but a form of economic organisation, whose ends are by no means always identical with those of Socialism. As an attempt at self-help by the workers, it is largely independent of politics, and as an association of consumers its interests may very easily conflict with those of the workers—as more than one dispute on conditions of employment has demonstrated.
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