The house of Industry : a new estate of the realm

CONSUMPTION AND CO-OPERATION 67

complain that to compete with Co-operation means the loss of all profits.

There are critics who contend that Co-operation is merely an integral part of the wage-system and accordingly that Co-operation must disappear with the wage-system. But these gentlemen also argue that wagery is an essential part of Capitalism and and that Capitalism is essential to our industrial economy. If Co-operation be as they think only a factor in the working-class movement, we need only remark that it is playing an economic part in Labour’s march towards economic redemption. When that is achieved, is it in the least likely that Labour will destroy one of the instruments of its emancipation ?

The fact is that the Co-operative Movement is a stupendous fact. We cannot avoid it whichever way we turn.

It may be that Co-operation has its economic limitations; it may have a certain intellectual narrowness; it may even be lacking in spiritual content: we cannot, all the same, deny that it has faithfully pursued its mission as the protector of the consumer and particularly the poor consumer. When we have said that, we have but uttered the barest truth; there is so much more to add.

There are, for example, the imponderables. Thus, if I buy an article in an ordinary retail shop, the transaction is complete in itself; but if, as a member of my local Society, I buy something, it is not the completion but the beginning