Co-operation has been of great benefit to the working class. By co-operation working men can acquire capital - can save without depriving themselves of any comfort; grow rich by the accumulation of savings that have grown, not by their own thrift, but through diverting the profits of the distributing class to the benefit of their own class. But what I like in co-operation is the possibility it opens out to secure a competency for the labourer - the possibility it offers of self-employment by associative gains - the willing, hearty co-operation of large bodies of men united for the common good of their class - not by strikes, not by threats against their fellow-men who exercise their free will to accept a price for their labour the others refuse, but, by using their brains, to become their own employers.

It is estimated that there is an accumulation at present of some £3,000,000 of surplus capital in the hands of co-operative societies. What to do with this surplus capital, was the prominent question at the last Co-operative Congress, and a committee has been appointed to report how it had best be dealt with. The Wholesale Co-operative Society at Manchester has been established twenty-one years, and has done well; last year its sales exceeded £4,500,000; but as there are 1,300 retail stores, with a turn-over of nearly £27,000,000, an increase of wholesale stores, to supply the retail, seems the best channel for the employment of surplus capital. This will be the policy, no doubt, judging by the following paragraph at the end of a little tract entitled "The Co-operative Wholesale Society: What is it?":