CO-OPERATIVE RECREATION.
MR. J. M. LUDLOW'S most interesting and admirable address, inaugurating this year's National Co- operative Festival at the Crystal Palace on Tuesday, afforded a striking proof of continued youthfulness o2 spirit on the part of that veteran leader in social reform. Much might be said of the excellent temper in which he dealt with recent criticisms on the co-operative movement, and it is to be hoped that his remarks in that connection will be very carefully studied by co-operators in all parts of the country. But that to which we desire to call special attention is the passage of Mr. Ludlow's address- setting forth his views as to the applicability of the co- operative principle to recreation. Here, as it seems to us, he has struck out a line of thought which promises a real- and great extension of the possibilities of human happi- ness. Starting from the postulate that inasmuch as a co- operative worker ought to be, and generally was, a hard worker, he needed the "right kind of play," Mr. Ludlow cordially recognised the value of the National Co-opera- tive Festivals, on the one hand, and the movement for co-operative seaside homes, on the other. So far as those efforts go they are excellent. But Mr. Ludlow invited his-- hearers to contemplate a wider and still far more attrac- tive vision. "He thought that the co-operative movement ought to be ere long, if it was not already, large enough, and strong enough, and rich enough, to have some great permanent playground, or even playgrounds, of its own.
He wished to see a sort of peaceful Bisley, a -place of cricket-fields and tennis-courts, football-fields and golf-links, with water at hand for some boating in summer and much skating in winter, a. place where the jaded co-operator, whether he belonged to a small Society- or a large one, might go for a. few days' honest play, and return to his work refreshed,—a new man."
It will be strange if the picture thus vigorously sketched does not stir the imagination and fire the zeal of many of those now actively concerned in the conduct of the co- operative movement. Mr. Ludlow's outline drawing can be filled'in, doubtless, in many ways, but all of them are charged with abundant enlargement of the opportunities of holiday delights now at the disposal of the ordinary member of a Co-operative Society. Let us suppose, for example, that the Co-operative Societies of each of the great sections into which the country is divided, in the Report published in connection with the Annual Co-opera- tive Congress, were to combine for the purchase, or hiring, and the equipment of one or more large tracts of territory ior the enjoyment of artisan holiday-makers. That would mean one or two such recreation-grounds of, say, two • thousand acres apiece, for the Southern counties from, and includin g, Cambridge to Kent and Dorset; one for the South- Western,—Cornwall, Devon, and Somerset ; one or two for the Midlands ; two or three for the North and North- West counties ; and so forth. There are parts of the Southern counties where a stretch of two thousand acres might be bought out and out for, say, .210 an acre, with .several farmhouses and. their appurtenant out-buildings. Land in Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, and Berkshire has been -sold below this price. A sum of £20,000 down would not seem, at the first blush, an altogether impossible expenditure for Societies whose net profits amounted (in the counties in question) to over .2315,000 in 1896. But if it were so considered, the renting of two thousand acres of rough land at 5s. an acre could hardly be deemed a reck- less addition to annual outlay for a limited period on the part of Societies doing such a business. Of course £3,000 or £4,000 might be wanted in the first instance for the laying out of the parts of the estate devoted to games, after which a few hundreds a year would be enough for keeping them in order. It might be prudent to rent, rather than to purchase, having regard to the probable need for further expenditure, in order to secure that the maximum number of co-operators should be -enabled to avail themselves of their new privileges. The houses bought or leased, as the case might be, with the land, would furnish a considerable amount of accommoda- tion to the members of the Societies concerned, and arrangements would naturally be made for providing board and lodging in them at cost prices, which, if there -were good management, ought to be at very low rates. But there would soon be, one might safely expect, such a run on the accommodation that the existing houses -would be unable to meet it. Then it would probably • be found that wooden or iron one - story cottages -would supply a large part of the demand in a satisfactory 'manner. The taste for a return to rustic simplicity in holiday pleasures, which shows itself in various ways among the well-to-do, already exists, or could readily be stimulated, among the artisans. For a few thousand ,pounds a goodly number of settlers' cabins, of wood -or iron, could be provided, giving as many rooms as are contained in the cottages inhabited by the artisans at 'home, and movable without difficulty from one part to -another of the estate, according as the taste of the majority of the co-operators interested varied, from uplands to valleys, from woodlands to open country. For, of course, the tracts selected in pursuance of Mr. Ludlow's charming project would include scenery of • various kinds, and might well be situated, if there were two of them in the occupation of one federation of Societies, one inland, and the other by the sea. Many of the younger people would camp out, and so both reduce their holiday expenses to a minimum, and come into that close and direct contact with Nature which is the special joy of those who dispense with roofs and walls, and is peculiarly beneficial to those whose workaday life is led under the artificial conditions of factory and urban life.
It is, indeed, very pleasant to think of the facilities which the great co-operative park scheme offers in many ways for the recovery of touch with Nature by those, of all ages, who during fifty-one weeks out of fifty-two are kept far away from her influences. The yearly holiday for -working-class people is an increasingly widespread institu- tion, and a very beneficent one. In the North of England, and especially in Lancashire, the mills quite generally close their gates for a week in the summer, and the work- people put by ample sums for expenditure when that week comes. Yet it may be doubted whether, in a great number of cases, the trip to the Lancashire coast, or even to that of North Wales or to the Isle of Man, is nearly as full of genuine refreshment as the one week's clear intermission from the roar and rush of the mill ought to be and might be. Too often, it is to be feared, the holiday of the artisan, like that of people of the middle and upper classes, consists largely in doing, because other people do them, things which are not congenial, and which do not truly deserve the name of recreation. The opportunities of being alone with Nature, of enjoying her spaces, of studying in any -detail her manifold forms of life, are probably rare. But there. was never a time nor a country where such oppor- tunities are more to be desired for the average man than an England at the present day. Very often, doubtless, the average man is hardly at all aware of his need. But it is a case in which the supply may create the demand, and one of the best features of Mr. Ludlow's scheme, to our mind, is that it offers to the best of the artisans an inviting alternative to the crowded and monotonous forms of recreation to which he is apt to resort, and which hitherto have often seemed to be the only forms at his disposal. Agricultural depression has been less severe in the North than in the South of England, and it may not, therefore, be so easy to acquire, by rent or purchase, the tracts of land needful for realising Mr. Ludlow's idea for the co-operators of Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Cheshire. But when it is mentioned that the net profits of the Co-operative Societies in the North-Western dis- trict, consisting mainly of these three counties, exclusive of the North Riding, amounted last year to nearly three millions sterling, the difficulties of obtaining the land hardly look insuperable. Of course, there may be many other difficulties arising,—for example, from the very vary- ing rates of profit shown by different Societies, and the consequent trouble of apportioning among them the burdens and the benefits of a co-operative park. Problems of administration likewise would have to be thought out carefully in advance on business lines. But that is the natural work of the young men of the co-operative move- ment. Their veteran leader has seen a vision and declared it to them. It is for them not only to dream corresponding dreams, but to set themselves quietly and resolutely towards the realisation of the new prospects which have been thus boldly opened out to them.
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