mbers are prominent in local government affairs; co-operative
candidates are occasionally run for town councils, and often talked of
for parliament. Though the societies are non-political, and have refused
to join the labour representation movement, they are usually centres of
"progressive" ideas. There are of course many defects, and of their two
million members a large, and many fear an increasing, proportion,
attracted by the prosperity of the societies, think chiefly of what they
themselves gain; but the government of the movement has, hitherto at
least, been largely in the hands of men of ideas, who believe that
stores are but a step to co-operative production, and on to the
"co-operative commonwealth."

It is indeed only when we come to federations of co-operative societies,
and above all to production, with its large number of employees, that
the educational side of the movement and its power to promote industrial
reform are most seen. The Co-operative Union, Limited, for instance, is
a propagandist federation of all the chief co-operative societies in
Great Britain, and some in Ireland. Its income of L10,000 a year is
contributed by the Co-operative Societies. It looks after their legal
and parliamentary interests, carries on much educational work by means
of literature, lectures, classes, scholarships, summer meetings at the
universities, and so on; organizes numerous local conferences for
discussion, and once a year a great national co-operative congress, and
exhibition of productions, in some chief centre of population. The
Co-operative Wholesale Society, Limited, is a trading federation of the
great majority of the English stores. Founded in 1863 on a small scale,
it now counts its employees by thousands, its capital by millions, and
its yearly sales by tens of millions. Besides its merchant trade, it
manufactures to the value of L4,500,000, owning factories, warehouses
and land in many districts. It imports largely, and runs its own
steamships. It is also the bank of the co-operative societies, and the
chief outlet for the always redundant capital of the well-established
stores. The Scottish stores also have their Wholesale Society, not less
important relatively. For many purposes these two are in partnership. In
each of them the net profits are returned to the stores as a dividend on
purchases, and thence to the whole body of members; but in the Scottish
Wholesale a part is also paid to its employees as a d