other. The effort must give a spirit of independence to the men, must give a hope of improving the condition of the lowest, not by State aid, not by help from the benevolent, but the elevation of their class by means that were honourable to themselves, without mendicancy and without revolution.

The progress of co-operation has been similar to that of our large mercantile houses-hard, up-hill struggle at first, with a resolution to overcome every obstacle, an inward belief that "it is success that colours all in life." It took from 1836 to 1866 - a period of thirty years-to raise the first million of capital; it took five years more to raise the second million; and it took only a year and a half (1870 to 1872) to raise the third million; in 1881 the capital was six millions. The total sales in 1882 of the 782 retail societies in England were £13,863,498, and the sales of the wholesale were £3,574,6955; in Scotland, the retail sales £3,280,644, the wholesale 0986,446. In the ten years, 1862 to 1871, a net profit of £3,739,093 was realized upon a total trade of 153,822,762; in the ten years, 1872 to 1881, the profit was £13,712,176, upon a trade of £169,433,328; so that the business of working men's cooperative societies has increased during the last decade more than three times, and the profits more than three and a half times. During the twenty years the co-operative societies had made a profit of very nearly seventeen and a half millions sterling, and that profit has been at the rate of no less than 29 per cent, on the share capital. The returns for Scotland show a still more marvellous result. During the