Ο THE CO-OPERATIVE TRAVELLER ABROA D. BY EDWARD OWEN GREENING. LONDON: ARTHUR STANDING; THE LABOUR ASSOCIATION, NORFOLK STREET, STRAND, W.C. 1888. PREFACE. THESE HESE sketches were originally written by me for the Co-operative News, the official organ of the Industrial Co-operative movement in Great Britain. They have been so widely quoted at home and abroad, that I am induced to believe they possess sufficient interest for republication in book form. In revising them for this purpose, I at first intended to strike out all those expressions and explanations which were originally intended only for the readers of the Co-operative News, and which may therefore have a very limited interest for the general reader, or even appear to him to be superfluous. But when I came to attempt to carry out my design, I found I could not eliminate these special features without destroying connecting links, which bind together the narrative as a whole. In preference therefore to recasting the work, and perhaps spoiling its readability, I venture to appeal to the indulgence of the general reader, who may not be a working man or a co-operator. If such readers find expressions in my book, with which they cannot sympathise and perhaps can hardly understand, I beg them to remember that to the author and his original audience of thirty thousand readers, Industrial Co-operation means a great deal more than a matter of business. It means even more than the purification of business. It is to us a living faith and a principle. We hope there will come out of it a peaceful and beneficent re-organisation of society, and the effectual elevation of our toiling masses. The account I have given I have given of the celebrated Familistère of Guise, commencing on page 48, is said by competent persons to be the most complete yet published in English. As such it has been republished entire in the United States. Copious extracts from it have been incorporated in pamphlets, lectures, and magazine articles at home. I have hopes that the complete republication will therefore supply a want. If a second edition of this work is called for, I purpose to bring down the narrative of the Society to the most recent date, giving all the facts and figures of its later annual growth. At present it will suffice to state here that the successful development of this wonderful work steadily continued to the lamented death of its great founder, M. Godin, in January of this year. That event had for years been looked forward to with dread by the friends of the Society as the crucial test of the strength and solidity of the experiment. We are now able to report that this |