d,--by any of your
writers on commercial subjects; and it is because I do not yet feel
able to grapple with them that I have left untouched, in the books I
send you, the question of co-operative labor. When I use the word
"co-operation," it is not meant to refer to these new constitutions of
firms at all. I use the word in a far wider sense, as opposed, not to
masterhood, but to _competition_. I do not mean, for instance, by
co-operation, that all the master bakers in a town are to give a share
of their profits to the men who go out with the bread; but that the
masters are not to try to undersell each other, nor seek each to get
the other's business, but are all to form one society, selling to the
public under a common law of severe penalty for unjust dealing, and at
an established price. I do not mean that all bankers' clerks should be
partners in the bank; but I do mean that all bankers should be members
of a great national body, answerable as a society for all deposits;
and that the private business of speculating with other people's money
should take another name than that of "banking." And, for final
instance, I mean by "co-operation" not only fellowships between
trading _firms_, but between trading _nations_; so that it shall no
more be thought (as it is now, with ludicrous and vain selfishness) an
advantage for one nation to undersell another; and take its occupation
away from it; but that the primal and eternal law of vital commerce
shall be of all men understood--namely, that every nation is fitted by
its character, and the nature of its territories, for some particular
employments or manufactures; and that it is the true interest of every
other nation to encourage it in such speciality, and by no means to
interfere with, but in all ways forward and protect, its efforts,
ceasing all rivalship with it, so soon as it is strong enough to
occupy its proper place. You see, therefore, that the idea of
co-operation, in the sense in which I employ it, has hardly yet
entered into the minds of political inquirers; and I will not pursue
it at present; but return to that system which is beginning to obtain
credence and practice among us. This, however, must be in a following
letter.

LETTER II.

CO-OPERATION, AS HITHERTO UNDERSTOOD, IS PERHAPS NOT EXPEDIENT.

_February 4, 1867._

4. Limiting the inquiry, then, for the present, as proposed in the
close of my last