THE FORTHCOMING CO-OPERATIVE CONGRESS.
CONGRESSES are a bore. Few, even of those who have officiated at these melancholy solemnities, will be disposed to contest the general truth of this axiom. If any do,0 wise man, pity that man or that woman, but as thou valuest thy peace and equanimity, depart from him or her, for be sure that he or she has ere this grievously sinned against the patience and forbearance of our fellow-creatures, and with hardened conscience must be contemplating a repetition of the offence !
Nevertheless, there be Congresses and Congresses. If the danger can be avoided of allowing the Congress to become a routine, a sort of sham world in itself,—above all, if that dreadful class of bipeds in human form can be kept at bay who deem it apparently their own vocation in life to read "papers," and that of everybody else to listen to them,—the occasional taking account of the world's or the country's progress or retrogression in reference to any special subject, by calling together the persons specially interested in that subject, and enabling them, in writing or by word of mouth, to interchange facts and opinions, and decide, if possible, on future action respecting it, should be useful and interesting. And in this point of view, a "Co-Operative Congress," called to meet in London in the theatre of the Society of Arts, on May 31 and the following days, may, if rightly managed,—God forbid we should say it will !—prove an exception to the general rule of boresomeness. It is now some seventeen years since, on the occasion of the then recent passing of the first "Industrial and Provident Societies" Act, a "Co-Operative Conference " took place in London, called together by the "Society for Promoting Working-Men's Associations." But, like the gathering under the same title which now meets yearly in the North, it was a purely business meeting, at which no " papers " were read, but only reports from societies, and correspondence referring to the meeting itself. Among the resolutions passed was one recommending the establishment of " wholesale depots, from which the co-operative bodies may be supplied with such articles as they want, of the best kind, and in the best manner, and by means of which exchanges may be effected of such articles as associated bodies may be engaged in producing,"—a suggestion which has since been in part magnificently carried oat through the establishment, in March, 1864, of that " North of England Co-Operative Wholesale Society, Limited," spoken of in our last number.
The present Congress meets under the chairmanship of Mr. Hughes, and the vice-chairmanship of Mr. Mundella, Mr. Walter Morrison being one of the Treasurers,—names which should afford a sufficient guarantee that neither earnestness, nor strong common-sense, nor practical experience will be wanting to guide the deliberations, whilst the Arrangement Committee contains the names of many, if not most, of those who have taken a prominent part in the co-operative movements of this country. The subjects proposed for discussion are,—(1) The "utilizing" Trades' Unions for co-operative purposes; (2) the best means of making co-operative societies mutually helpful, e.g., by promoting the sale of their productions, "instituting a system of guarantee, banking and labour-exchange," applying co-operation to and combining manufactures with agriculture and horticulture, self-supporting educational co-opera
tive establishments, a general organization of co-operative societies and co-operators at home and abroad, amendment of the law, &c. ; (3) the chief causes of failure of co-operative societies, and the fundamental conditions of their success ; (4) the best division of profits between capital and labour in partnerships of industry ; (5) the best practical means of promoting a knowledge of co-operation among the people, and of diffusing the most approved plans
for its practice. An appalling list, truly and one which even with every possible limitation of papers and speeches can never be thoroughly worked out in three or four days I Still, it contains practical elements, and the fact that the discussions are intended to be confined to the delegates of existing Societies, and to the persons specially invited by the Committee to take part in the Congress, affords a hope that those elements will be themselves handled with practical effect. It is understood that the leading co-operative societies of the North, as well as many others scattered throughout the country, intend to send delegates to the Congress, and the proposed exhibition during the sitting of the Congress of specimens of production by co-operative societies and partnerships of industry will probably tend to bring together more representatives of bodies formed for co-operative production than have yet met together in this country.
It is thus not impossible that the Congress may really mark an epoch in the history of English Co-Operation. A system, originating entirely with the working class, has been applied to consumption which, in itself, stands as a thing absolutely successful ; which commands the wholesale market, and has at its disposal more capital than it knows what to do with, so that it is actually either refusing or
handing it back. Side by side with it, but with none but individual links between the two, stands a vast organization of the working-class, engaged in painfully heaping up capital, but only to spend it again without profit to itself ; in possession of large funds, but unable to apply them to any reproductive purpose. Meanwhile, little groups of men here and there are endeavouring, too often under every disadvantage, to devise and apply some system which shall bear in reference to production the like results as those already realized in reference to consumption, which shall harmonize the interests of the buyer and seller of labour, as the co-operative store and the wholesale co-operative society have harmonized the interests of the buyer and seller of goods. But all around the struggle, the absurd, monstrous, internecine struggle between capital and labour goes on, on an almost ever increasing scale,—Preston weavers on strike or locked out here, Bradford stonemasons there, South Yorkshire miners yonder. Why cannot all these isolated forces be brought to unite ? Why must co-operative consumption be throwing away capital, whilst co-operative production has to be established and made successful ? Why must trade societies be doing nothing with a large portion of their accumulated funds, instead of applying them to reproductive purposes ? Why should production ever be stopped, whilst there is work to be done ? Why should men willing to work ever stop or be stopped from working ? Such questions have, indeed, been put for years by many men to themselves or to their fellows. But is not the time near at hand,—may it not be come,— when they can be answered ? Let the Co-Operative Congress do its best to tell us how.
But to do so it must have a character of its own ; it must not be a copy, still less a caricature, of a Social Science Congress, or of any other. The men who come there must feel and understand that their business in life is to do and not to talk, and that the feeblest way of setting the world to rights is to " read a paper " about the doing so. Allowing for the value of a terse and well-written essay or report towards steadying a discussion, the reading of " papers " has surely grown to be a monstrous abuse. Already have Congresses and their congeners bred up two new and lamentable varieties of the human species, unknown to former ages,--on the one hand, that dreadful irrepressible class spoken of above, whose names figure in the Transactions of every conceivable society as having " read a paper " at some one of its meetings ; who turn up against you in the most unexpected places ; fire off their papers at what would seem a priori the most impossible subjects for them to treat ; who have nothing ever to say, but by dint of imperturbable pertinacity seem to have acquired a prescriptive right of saying that nothing perpetually to their assembled fellowcreatures ; on the other hand, a class of humble-minded creatures, apparently the predestined victims of the former ones ; meekest of men and women, who have seemingly accepted it as their vocation to listen to " papers " and the discussion thereof ; to whom the great crux of life is obviously how to be present in six or eight " sections " at once ; whom yon may see now patiently sitting out a whole day of dreariest matter in the self-same seat, now rushing red-faced from room to room, as if the whole responsibilities of the solar system were upon their shoulders, and the preservation of the universe depended on their presence in Twaddle-Shop B the instant after leaving Twaddle-Shop A. Will the Co-Operative Congress of 1869 have the sense and the fortitude to put down the former class ? If it is to be real and not a sham,—a work and not a name, it must do so.
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