by the community of consumers. And it was now no longer true to say that the movement flourished mainly in the industrial districts of the North and Midlands; London, for instance, which for long had the reputation of being a " cooperative desert," had become an active centre of cooperation, and the London Cooperative Society, recently formed by an amalgamation of two important societies, was in 1921 the largest cooperative society in the kingdom and had a membership of nearly 100,000 and annual sales of nearly 3,500,000.
But if the expansion of the distributive side of the movement in the local societies had been great, the growth of production and manufacture by consumers' societies was even more re- markable. Nearly all the retail consumers' societies are federated in the English, Scottish, and Irish wholesale societies for the purposes of manufacture and wholesale supply. The value of the goods supplied by these three wholesale societies to their members amounted in 1919 to over 115,000,000. The outstanding feature in the history of 1910-20 was the way in which the wholesale societies, particularly the English C.W.S., proved that the sys- tem of consumers' cooperation can be adapted to control the various branches of industrial production. The English C.W.S. is one of the most important and varied industrial businesses in the world. Its employees number about 40,000; in 1919, apart from its activities as a wholesale supplier and distributor, it produced or manufactured for its members commodities valued at over 25,000,000. It was in 1921 the largest flour miller in the United Kingdom and probably the largest timber importer at the Manchester docks. Its factories are to be found in every large industrial centre in England. It produces boots and shoes, textiles and clothing, furniture, metals and hardware, soap and candles, tobacco and groceries.
The most significant feature in the development of the productive activities of the consumers' societies is the way in which circum- stances have compelled the C.W.S. to obtain control over the raw materials necessary for the production of the commodities con- sumed by cooperators. The supply of a staple article like bread will afford a good example of this tendency. The baking of bread has from the earliest times been a successful cooperative industry and large numbers of societies have their own bakeries. Cooperators, however, soon found that baking was only the last link in a whole chain of industries which determined the price and quality of bread. In order that the community of consumers might really 'exercise control over that price and quality, the movement was driven back- wards from the baking industry to enter the milling industry. Though the C.W.S. has become the biggest miller in the kingdom, and the value of the products of the corn-milling industry of the movement was nearly 13,000,000 in 1919, events at the beginning of the World War taught cooperators the weakness of their position unless they also had some control over the production and supply of grain which was ground into flour in their mills. In the early days of the World War the movement stood out against " profiteering " in bread and flour, and there were several instances of societies which succeeded in keeping down the price of bread in their areas by re- fusing to enter into agreements with the other bakers to raise it. But cooperators had no such power of influencing the price of wheat upon which depended the price of flour, because they depended themselves upon the private wheat-grower for their supplies. These considerations induced the C.W.S. to acquire 10,000 ac. of wheat- growing land in Canada.
There are other equally remarkable examples of the same tendencies. In 1914 the C.W.S. had hardly touched agricul- ture; in 1921 it owned nearly 35,000 ac. of land in the United Kingdom, and in a single quarter of 1920 it started a cattle market at Gisburn, a butter factory at Carlisle, and a fish- curing dep6t at Fleetwood. Again, it is only since the war that the English and Scottish wholesale societies have become really large owners of tea estates; during 1920 they purchased no less than 32,000 ac. of tea plantations in India and Ceylon. Lastly, the same process may be observed in the soap and candle industry, for in 1921 the C.W.S. at its dep6ts in West Africa purchased palm kernels direct from the natives, shipped them to its oil mills in Liverpool, which again supplied to its soap and candle factory at Irlam the mate- rials of another industry.
Cooperative industry, based upon a democratic organization of consumers, spread in the decade 1910-20 from town to town and from industry to industry throughout the economic system of Great Britain, but perhaps one of its most interesting and important developments was in the sphere of international trade. In one sense the cooperative movement, as a large importer of food, raw materials, and manufactured goods, had always en-
gaged in foreign trade, but as an importer there was nothing to distinguish its activities from those of the ordinary private trader or joint -stock company. But the C.W.S. has shown since the war what great possibilities there are in the movement for conducting international exchange of goods on a non-profit- making, cooperative basis. Cooperative international trade implies, of course, that there should be a direct exchange of goods between the organized cooperative movements of the several countries and that profit-making should be eliminated by the payment of dividend upon purchase. The machinery for such trade already exists, for no fewer than 19 European countries possess cooperative wholesale societies, and these wholesale societies can organize international trade with one another on a strictly cooperative basis.
To some extent this kind of trade had existed for many years; before the war, for instance, the English C.W.S. supplied tea to the German wholesale society and imported cheese from the Swiss wholesale society, while the German wholesale, again, supplied goods to the Danish wholesale. But the economic situation at the end of the war gave a great impetus to international cooperative trade. The ordinary machinery of foreign trade had broken down as the result of war and blockade, and it would not right itself, partly because of the chaos in credit and the exchanges, and partly because a great deal of the machinery was under governmental control. In such circumstances the cooperative movements of the various countries, resting on the broad basis of the organized consumers both in regard to trade and credit, and with their machinery of production and distribution intact, were not under the same disadvantages as capitalist enterprises.
The English C.W.S. took the lead in organizing international exchange, and it did so in three different ways. It supplied goods direct to the cooperative organizations of France, Holland, Switzer- land, Norway, Australia, Canada, Egypt, India, South Africa, Pales- tine, Brazil, and China. Secondly.it gave credits amounting to nearly 1,000,000 to the Rumanian, Polish, and Belgian cooperative move- ments, the greater part of these credits being taken in the form of food and manufactured goods. Thirdly, it tried the experiment of direct barter with the cooperators of South Russia, sending a cargo of clothing, etc., to the Russians and receiving in exchange a cargo of raw materials. This experiment in cooperative barter was not very successful, partly owing to political difficulties, but the other enterprises led to an international movement among cooperators to develop cooperative foreign trade. In 1919 and 1920 there were con- ferences of the wholesale societies of the various countries, and a scheme was agreed upon under which each wholesale society would organize an export department, there would be joint purchasing arrangements between the various societies, and there would be a central bureau of statistics for the collection of information regarding goods which each wholesale society either demands or can supply.
Two other developments of the cooperative movement deserve notice. The first is insurance. The Cooperative Insurance Society, which is a joint insurance department of the English and Scottish wholesale societies, now undertakes life, fire, accident, and em- ployers' liability insurance. In all these departments there has been a rapid development in recent years. The most interesting feature is the collective life assurance business, under which a cooperative society collectively insures the lives of all its members: under this system there is a great saving in cost, for there is no collection of premiums from individuals, the premiums being paid in a lump sum by the society and recovered from the dividend payable to members. In 1919 there were 817 societies assured in this way, and the number of members in these societies was 2 J millions. This insurance business is conducted on strictly cooperative principles; thus out of the profits on fire insurance, after the usual rate of 5% on capital was paid, a dividend of 2s. in the to members and is. to non-members upon their fire insurance policies was declared in 1918. The progress of cooperative insurance may be seen in the fact that the income from life, fire, and accident premiums rose from 104,615 in 1909 to 924,- 066 in 1919, an increase of 783 per cent. The C.W.S. banking activities have made equal progress. The C.W.S. Bank has (1921) two branches, one in London and the other in Manchester. It accepts current accounts from cooperative societies, trade unions and friendly societies, clubs and other mutual organizations. In 1920 the number of current accounts with the bank was as follows: cooperative societies 1,016, trade unions and friendly societies 3,347, clubs, etc., 1,391. The deposits and withdrawals in the half year ending June 1920, amounted to 314,000,000, showing an increase of over 26% on the corresponding period of 1919. The C.W.S. banking is, again, conducted on a strictly non-profit-mak- ing, cooperative basis, the profits being returned to customers in the form of a dividend upon their balances.
The facts and figures given above show the tremendous growth of the cooperative movement. The Increase in its membership and the great extension in the area of its operations have brought new problems and created new tendencies. Up to the end of the
