LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
CO-OPERATION AND COMPETITION.
pro THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."1 SIR,—In a friendly notice last month of a speech of mine to the Co-operative Union at Manchester, you say you" would like to discuss with me whether competition should be excluded from the principles of trade as a non-Christian principle ; " and further on you add, "Cooperation will lose all its briskness unless Co-operative Societies heartily compete with each other," and express a wish that I would confine my denunciations to cruel competition and illusory cheapness." In passing, I just wish to say very plainly once more that I do denounce competition in trade as broadly as the words of the speech you were criticising indicated. More than thirty years anxious watching has convinced me that all competition in trade has an irresistible tendency to become cruel, and all cheapness gained through competition illusory. This, however, by the way ; my object in writing to-day is not to discuss, but just to send you a short notice of a New Year's Day Co-operative gathering, in the hope that the story may induce you to reconsider your desire to see co-operative societies "heartily competing with each other." Unhappily, those of the upper and middle classes are already moving with light hearts along this tempting road.
But now to my tale. You are no doubt aware that there is a large shoe manufactory at Leicester founded by and belonging to the English Wholesale Society, or, in other words, to all the co-operative societies in union in England and Wales. This factory was started in 187:3, when the English Wholesale Society was nine years old, and was doing a yearly business of £1,153,131 The Scottish Wholesale Society, which was founded in 186'8 on the model of the English Society, has for the last twelve years dealt with the English Society for its shoes, and in the last few years has become its largest customer, taking one-tenth of the whole output of the shoe manufactory at Leicester. The Scottish Wholesale Society—either from native caution, or from the severe lesson taught them by the failure of their experiment in the Glasgow Ironworks, which brought them to the verge of ruin in 1874—hesitated until last year before trying another experiment in production. In 1884, however, when their sales amounted to £1,300,330, they resolved to follow in the steps of the English Society and to start a shoefactory of their own. They did not, however, happen to have a shoemaker on their committee, and their first great difficulty was to get trustworthy advice as to the kind of premises that were needed. "Every source of information," Mr. Maxwell, their chairman, says in his speech on New Year's Day, "was closed against us in Scotland. We had nowhere to turn to but to England, and we could not have turned to better friends." In short, the British Wholesale Society met them with the greatest cordiality, gave them all the information they needed, instructed their manager at Leicester to show them everything there, and sent him to Glasgow to help in preparing the plans for the new building. The result has been the factory in the Paisley Road, which was opened on New Year's Day, having cost upwards of £7,000, and as to which the chairman could say, "Everything that money could procure has found a place in this factory, and I have it on competent authority, that we have now one of the best, if not the best boot-and-shoe factory in Scotland." In moving a vote of thanks to their English brethren, he added, "All this has been done with the full knowledge that the moment we started business for ourselves we ceased to be their
best customer at Leicester It is with the greatest pleasure that I now declare this factory open, and I hope you will give it your entire support. I have only to ask that God will give his blessing to this and every other work that has for its object the uplifting of the masses of society." I could not resist quoting these last words to emphasize the h ighest side of the movement ; and at the risk of making this letter too long, must add a few sentences from the responses of the English deputation. Mr. Lord, of the English Wholesale Committee, said :—" On behalf of the English Wholesale I wish you God-speed in your work. We are sorry to lose you as customers, and shall have to work the harder for it with our English friends." Mr. Hines, of Ipswich, the chairman of the Southern Section of the English Union :—" There is one thing that has struck me in our Co-operative movement, and that is the freemasonry there is amongst us from John o' Groat's to the Land's End." Mr. Vansittart Neale, the general secretary, repeated his lesson :—`'Not only look to your shoes, but look to your shoemakers, until you can say that every shoemaker in this factory is in a position he never could have attained in any ordinary workshop." And Mr. Dadley, the manager of the Leicester works :—" Remember that our chief difficulty is in supplying cheap goods. At Leicester we never have a complaint about our best goods, and our medium goods give satisfaction. All our trouble comes from making the lowest-priced goods demanded by the English Co-operators."
I own, Sir, that I am proud of this spirit, and believe it will give higher results in all ways than "hearty competition ' between the English and Scottish Wholesale Societies. Nor, to judge from past experience, can I see why in a few years every pair of shoes for working folk in England and Scotland should not be supplied by the two wholesale societies and their affiliated factories without any competition whatever. The customers— all, be it remembered, members themselves of societies composing the Union—will take good care that their representatives in the wholesale factories do not give them bad or dear boots and shoes. I will only add one sentence from the speech of the chairman of the quarterly meeting, held on the same day :—" What do we find at the present moment in Scotland, in the midst of this depression of trade and enforced idleness ? We find, generally, the co-operative societies of the country growing richer every day, and more powerful in their work for doing good." I can vouch that this experience is that of England also.—I am, Sir, THOS. HUGHES.
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