penses are provided for along with those of her husband and children.
Since the association would, of course, buy everything at wholesale, like any other store, it may be asked why, instead of buying at the usual retail prices, and receiving back again the third that constitutes retail profit, the housekeepers should not simply pay to the association the cost price of their family food and clothing,—as the saving in the end would be about the same. I answer, because in Germany and England both systems have been tried, and the one proposed has been found by far the most successful. It gives greater zeal and interest to the co-operator to feel that, without the trouble of thinking about it as an economy, a little comfortable sum is accumulating for him or her which, at the end of the quarter or the year, can either be used for some household comfort or invested in some of the enterprises for the benefit of the association that, as in Rochdale, would very soon make their appearance in connection with it.
To the five general principles of the first article of our constitution should be added two others of hardly less importance which I will embody in the second article.
Article II.—Salaries and Wages.
The Co-operative Housekeeper's Society of will accept no voluntary labour, but will, as far as possible, fill its offices with its own members or their female relatives and friends, at fixed salaries; and these salaries, as well as the wages of all its clerks and servants, shall be the same as would be paid to men holding similar positions.
Reasons for Article II.
It is one of the cherished dogmas of the modern lady, that she must not do anything for pay; and this miserable prejudice of senseless conventionality is at this moment the worst obstacle in the way of feminine talent and energy. Let the co-operative housekeepers demolish it for ever, by declaring that it is just as necessary and just as honourable
