at the end of the year under the form of a thirty-per-cent dividend of profits on their capital. Very soon, coal, meat, shoes, cotton and woollen goods, and all other commodities which workmen need to purchase, were added to the original business, and the institution has become one of the most prosperous ever established for the benefit of the working classes. In 1867, it had nearly seven thousand members, employed $640,000 as capital, and distributed over $200,000 as profits. Nearly two hundred similar Co-operative Store societies have since been established in England, and their sales amount annually to thirty millions of dollars. Many others have been founded in Germany and this country, and always with good success when they have adhered to the rule of never selling on credit, and when they have had competent and faithful managers, whom it is always good policy to secure, even at high salaries.

In many instances, also, manufacturing and mining enterprises, and the mechanic arts and trades, have been successfully conducted, and on a large scale, either by the workmen themselves furnishing the capital, or a large portion of it; or by capitalists giving to their operatives a share of the profits in addition to their ordinary wages. Even in the latter case, where the alliance between Labor and Capital is less complete, it is generally found that the more hearty co-operation, thus secured, of the employed with their employers, and their greater diligence, zeal, and carefulness in the work, so much increase the profits that the net income of the proprietor is larger than its gross amount was before any deduction was made for the benefit of the workmen.

Thus, the Briggs collieries in England had been conducted for twelve years with small success, chiefly because the men employed, nearly one thousand in number, were on ill terms with the proprietors; strikes were frequent, one of them lasting for thirtyfive weeks; holidays were often demanded, during which the machinery and works remained idle at a great loss; and general waste and carelessness prevailed. Consequently, the profits were small, for two years being only five per cent, and rising above ten per cent only for one year. To remedy this state of things, the business was transferred, in 1865, to a joint-stock company, one third of the shares being offered, at $50 each, to the miners and hired agents and overseers. It was also agreed that, whenever

the profits, after reserving a portion sufficient to renew the machinery when worn out, should exceed ten per cent, one half of such excess should be distributed as a bonus to all the persons employed in or about the collieries, in sums proportional to their respective earnings during the year in which the profits accrued, the other moiety of the surplus being added to dividend on capital. This offer certainly was not remarkable for liberality; but it operated like a charm in producing the heartiest co-operation and good-will among all the parties concerned, and in promoting industry and avoiding waste. At one time, the price of coal having fallen, even a general reduction of wages was accepted without remonstrance. For the first year of the new system, the profits were fourteen, for the second they were sixteen, and for the third, seventeen per cent. In 1858, four hundred and fifty-four shares had been purchased by those engaged in the collieries, and the market price of each share had risen to $72. A similar experiment, tried for over fifteen years by M. Leclaire, a house-painter employing, in Paris, more than two hundred hands, has been equally successful.

Many attempts have been made to effect a still more complete alliance between the two agents of production, the whole capital being owned or managed by the work-people. This end, of course, is more difficult to be accomplished, even on a small scale, and is impossible on a large one; since the laborers, even by clubbing their savings and their credit, cannot obtain capital enough to meet all the exigencies of a great manufactory, and to live through the reverses to which they are exposed in the fluctuations of trade. The mode of trying the experiment is obvious enough. "A number of workmen, having contrived to procure the needful tools and raw material, must agree to work together at the same trade, under directors chosen by themselves from amongst themselves, and must further agree that the entire net proceeds of their industry shall be divided, in some prearranged proportion, among all who have contributed, whether by their labor or their capital, or by both, to the joint production." The French government has recently aided such enterprises by moderate loans at the outset; and with such aid, some associations of printers, cabinet-makers, masons, and other classes of artisans, at Paris, have been decidedly successful. Thus, in 1848, nine journeyman cabi

net-makers formed themselves into a joint-stock company, with only one hundred dollars of capital. They soon obtained a good deal of custom, and their number increased more than tenfold. The state then helped them with a loan of $5,000 for fourteen years, at four per cent; and in 1857, they numbered one hundred and sixty-five associates and "auxiliaries," and were doing a business of $80,000 a year. In 1862, there were fourteen similar societies at Paris among the various trades, having an aggregate capital of $180,000, and the products of their business amounting to half a million annually, the average rate of profit being nearly twenty-three per cent.

In England, companies of this sort have not been so successful, as small enterprises there cannot so easily compete with large ones. Yet government has aided them, as far as seemed prudent and practicable. Parliament has passed laws sanctioning "partnerships of industry," as they are termed, in which the workmen are allowed to have an interest in the profits of the business, without becoming liable as partners for the debts; and encouraging co-operative stores and associations. Statutes have also been passed to recognize and regulate "Friendly Societies," formed by workmen for mutual life-insurance, and to grant small weekly allowances in case of sickness; also, to encourage buildingassociations, to open the Post-Offices as Savings' Banks for the laboring classes, and to grant annuities and life-assurances under the guaranty of the state. In Germany, under the practical guidance of the same wise philanthropist who invented and established the Credit-Banks, Schulze-Delitzsch, twenty-six companies had been established among the artisans, up to 1865, for the production and sale of finished wares on common account; and one hundred and eighty other associations, with about ten thousand members, for the supply, at wholesale prices, of the raw materials required by those who worked separately at their respective trades. Some of these organizations have been successful, while others have failed to answer the expectations of their members.

It is evident that many experiments must still be tried before the plans for combining the ownership of Capital with that of Labor— or, in other words, of merging profits and wages into a common fund can be perfected. The attempt is most likely to succeed in those manufactures and trades in which labor con

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tributes more largely than capital to the value of the commodity; and unfortunately, the number of these is every day diminishing, because the progress of invention and the improvement of machinery tend inevitably to mass the business of production in vast establishments, which require an immense capital, and easily crush out, or outlive, small enterprises. In New England, for instance, within a quarter of a century, the invention of powerpresses, sewing-machines, and almost countless contrivances for abridging manual labor in manufactures from iron and leather, have brought together into monster workshops the printers, tailors, shoemakers, and blacksmiths, who formerly plied their trades one by one, or in small parties.

Another obstacle to the success of co-operative associations arises from the difficulty of securing competent head management. The direction of a large business generally demands great sagacity and foresight, perfect acquaintance with the markets, and familiarity with a mass of mechanical, pecuniary, and administrative details. These qualities are not often found united in one person, as is proved by the frequency of failures and bankruptcies; and even when they exist, they are not likely to be fully developed and exerted, except under some stronger stimulus of self-interest than is afforded by the receipt of a good salary or a small fraction of the profits. Committees of management are proverbially negligent or meddlesome, inharmonious and unsuccessful: one executive head, and a very able one, is an essential prerequisite of success in any large undertaking.

It must be expected, then, that there will be the same alternations of failure with success in the business of combined workmen, as in that of individual capitalists. It is for the workman himself to judge, whether he will quit the security of his present position for the heavy risks and doubtful advantages of an active share in the business. At present, he is guarantied against loss. The workman's wages are his share of the average profit and loss commuted into a fixed payment. "The capitalist alone endures. all the losses, alone furnishes all the advances, alone encounters the risk of ruin, and receives only what profits may remain after the laborer's commuted share is paid. The workman's share is a first mortgage; the capitalist's share is only a reversionary claim." Under the light of the experiments which have thus far been

made, perhaps the best advice which can be given is, that the employed should continue in the receipt of moderate wages, and that the manager-capitalist should, for his own sake as well as for that of the other parties concerned, promote harmony, prevent strikes, and encourage diligence and fidelity, by annexing to the wages one third or one half of whatever surplus profits there may be over such a rate per cent as would be an average income on ordinary investments. The probable result will then be, as in the case of the Briggs collieries, that the proprietor's share, after this deduction, will be greater than it would have been had no such deduction been made.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE MALTHUSIAN THEORY OF POPULATION CONSIDERED AND REFUTED : THE TRUE LAW OF THE INCREASE OF POPULATION.

THE laws of Political Economy, for the most part, are inferences from the general fact that individuals compete with each other in the pursuit of wealth. Rents, Profits, Wages, Prices, are determined by competition; and as we are able to foresee what the effects of competition will be, we can show how these things will vary under given circumstances. Thus, Profits tend to an equality in all employments, because capitalists compete with each other, and will withdraw their capital from a business which is less profitable, to invest it in one which is more so; this influx of capital into the more lucrative employment soon reduces the rate of profit in it to a level with the Profits in other employments. The Price of an article, of which there is a given quantity in the market, is determined by the Demand for it, that is, by the competition of the buyers. And this Demand, again, regulates the future Supply of that article; for, as the competition of the buyers becomes warm, the Price is enhanced, the Profits of those who produce the article are increased, more capital is attracted into the employment, the Supply is enlarged, and the Price falls again.

These principles are sufficiently obvious; and if there were not