3. Profits of £10,458,163.

Two wholesale societies are included in these figures, with

1. Sales of £27,725,207; and

2. Profits, £80,624.

Co-operative societies devoted £83,226 to education in 1905, and the Central Board of Education point out the desirability of all co-operative societies devoting at least 2 per cent. of the net profits to the furtherance of the work.

From 1861 to the end of 1905

1. The trade of the co-operative societies amounted to £1,564,743,610; and

2. The profits derived from that trade reached the enormous total of £153,118,706.

To-day the amount of capital invested in co-operative societies in the shape of shares and loans is £30,247,194, so that the movement has only retained or accumulated one-fifth of the total results derived from co-operative trading, and the present rate of accumulation is even less than one-fifth, being about one-ninth of the annual profits.

Every labourer feels at times that the value of his work is not represented by the wages he receives. He would like a share in the extra profit above his wages. In 1905, £20,496 was paid to workers of this way of thinking who were identified with the Labour Copartnership Association.

There were in Great Britain in 1905, 124 societies for labour co-partnership with

1. A capital of £1,819,390; and

2. A trade of £3,664,394. They made

3. A profit of £188,290; and there was paid as dividend to labour, or

4. As labour's share over and above standard wages, £20,496. In 1893 the sum so divided was only £8225.

There are an ever-increasing number of Co-operative Societies and Labour Co-partnership Associations coming into being in the United Kingdom, and within every nation throughout the western civilisation there are equally eloquent facts indicating the universality of the co-operative movement.

In matters relating to the distribution of intertemporary values we have made some real progress in England in the law regulating Tithe Commutation, and in Ireland, where the law recognises that the sum of money due to the landlord for rent, as value in exchange for the use of his fixed capital, should be modified according to the varying circumstances of production and exchange; there is therefore hope that the application of this principle of distribution will be extended to the sum of money due to the bondholder for interest, as value in exchange for the use of his circulating capital, and to all other matters relating to the distribution of inter-temporary values.

These are the harbingers of the modified economic order which shall be; hopeful as is the dawn of the coming day; beautiful as "are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that

bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation;" they show us the direction of the movement towards economic amelioration, and indicate, in some degree, that men are practically recognising the instability of the existing economic order; and they demand of us that we examine carefully the foundation and the supporting walls of the existing structure, and "without haste but without rest," proceed with the necessary work of "the removing of those things which are or may be shaken, ... so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain."

Under the existing wage competitive system, in all contemporary transactions, there is the exclusive appropriation of the profit, the surplus wealth, the dividend, resulting from the co-operation of all classes of workers, directly and immediately (a) by entrepreneurs, who undertake to pay in advance fixed sums of money for the use of capital and for the services of labour in full satisfaction of all the claims of capitalists and labourers upon the produce resulting from their conjoint work; and under the Single Standard Money System, in all inter-temporary transactions, indirectly and ultimately (b) by capitalists as one of the results of the operation of the legal tender provisions of the coinage laws of the nation which secure the intermittent but permanent appreciation of money, thereby giving to capitalists, who are the creditor classes of the nation, an intermittently but permanently increasing control over all articles of physical wealth, over all commodities, as the progress of the economic arts-as

industrial, commercial, and financial efficiency-reduces cost of production, and as abundance reduces price.

The investments of labourers in Consols and other similar securities, yielding a fixed rate of interest, bring them, to the extent of their investments, within the group of the creditor classes of the nation, and place them, to the extent of their investments, in the position to benefit by the operation of the legal tender provisions of the coinage laws of the nation which secure to the creditor classes of the nation an intermittently but permanently increasing control over all articles of physical wealth as the progress of the economic arts— as industrial, commercial, and financial efficiency—reduces cost of production, and as abundance reduces price.

The direction in which we are moving towards conditions of social and economic amelioration, and the defects of the existing wage system, were seen and pointed out by J. S. Mill in his "Principles of Political Economy," as follows:

"Finally, I must repeat my conviction, that the industrial system, which divides society absolutely into two portions, the payers of wages and the receivers of them, the first counted by thousands and the last by millions, is neither fit for nor capable of indefinite duration; and the possibility of changing this system for one of combination without dependence, and unity of interest instead of organised hostility, depends altogether upon the future developments of the partnership principle."

The fundamental and potent influence of our money

laws upon the industry and commerce of the country, and the defects of our existing money laws, were seen and pointed out by Lord Beaconsfield in the novel Endymion," as follows:

"The corn laws are very bad laws,' said Enoch,

' and the sooner we get rid of them the better. But there are worse things than the corn laws.'

mean the laws that secure the accumulation of capital. Why, Job was saying the other day there was nothing like a principle to work upon. It would carry all before it. So say I. And I have a principle too, though it is not Master Thornberry's. But it will carry all before it, though it may not be in my time. But I am not so sure of that.'

“And what is it?' asked Endymion.

The existing economic conditions seem to demand for their betterment :

(a) The establishment of a just and reasonable system of profit-sharing as part of the necessary business relations between employers and employees, so that all the members of these two groups of workingmen may be directly interested in the final product of their joint labours, and participate periodically in the profits—the surplus produce of industry and commerce -according to the varying circumstances of production and exchange, as the reward of successful work. In this way the need of resorting to the strike or the