As at present organized, the service of distribution includes two departments: (1) That of production and (2) that of sales. The first is divided into two sections, viz, a bakery and a charcuterie (an establishment for the preparation of hog products). The charcuterie was in existence prior to the organization of the society. The bakery was established in 1886. It is equipped with two furnaces or ovens and other necessary appliances, affording a productive capacity of from 700 to 800 kilograms (1,543 to 1,764 pounds) of bread per day. The flour used is first and second class, mixed in equal proportions. The price of bread is regulated by the minimum price charged by independent bakers of the village of Guise. The average annual profit realized is about 3.81 per cent. This is exclusive of the profits that may be realized by the sale of the bread through the sales department, as the bread is not sold at the bakery, but is transferred to the sales department. Previous to 1887 a dairy had been maintained by the society for supplying milk to members. It was, however, abandoned in that year, and milk is now purchased at wholesale rates from a neighboring dairyman and retailed through the sales department.

The sales department is divided into the following sections:

1. Dry goods and miscellaneous, including such categories as dry goods proper, ready-made articles of wearing apparel, hats, shoes, furniture, stationery, watches and jewelry, etc.

2. Groceries, including groceries proper, kitchen utensils, beer, wine, and other liquors.

3. Food products, such as meats, fruits, vegetables, etc.

4. Fuel.

5. Administration of the bath and wash rooms.

6. Administration of the tavern, casino, etc.

7. Auxiliary service for the sale of liquors wherever permitted. The sale of furniture and of watches and jewelry was commenced in 1889.

The following tables, giving the total value of products and of articles of each class sold during each year since the foundation of the society, will show the progress in importance of the Cooperative Distributive Association:

VALUE OF PRODUCTS OF THE COOPERATIVE DISTRIBUTIVE ASSOCIATION OF THE FAMILISTÈRE SOCIETY OF GUISE, 1879-80 TO 1894-95.

INCOME FROM SALES, ETC., OF THE COOPERATIVE DISTRIBUTIVE ASSOCIATION OF THE FAMILISTÈRE SOCIETY OF GUISE, 1879-80 TO 1894-95.

a This total is greater than the sum of the items. The explanation is not known. given as published by the society.

The figures are

The administration of the service of distribution is under the general control of the board of directors and the familistère committee. A general director of the service is appointed, who is the executive head of this branch of the industry. The personnel required for the service numbers between fifty and sixty persons, the greater part of whom are women. With rare exceptions, purchases are made directly from producers, without the intervention of middlemen. For the supply of certain articles the society is affiliated with the Federation of the Cooperative Societies of France.

The stores are for the most part located in rooms on the ground floor of the main familistère. The stores for the green groceries, meats, and fruits, the tavern, etc., are, however, installed in separate buildings. Every member of the society, every employee of the establishment, or even persons utter strangers to the society, have free access to the stores and can participate equally in the profits. After all expenses have been paid the net profits remaining are divided among the purchasers in proportion to the value of their purchases during the year. Prior to 1881-82 these profits were distributed in cash. In that year the system was changed so that 50 per cent of the profits were distributed in cash and the remainder as a credit for the future purchase of articles. This was done in order to encourage members to make their purchases at the stores of the society. In 1888-89 the amount distributed as a credit for future purchases was raised to 85 per cent and only the remaining 15 per cent distributed in cash.

In order to participate in profits purchasers must secure a pass book, in which all purchases are entered. Purchases must be paid for in cash. The financial results of the operations of this branch of the general industry are shown in the following table. In explanation it should be said that "capital invested" represents only the value of the stock carried, and that the rent of the rooms occupied is included in expenses.

FINANCIAL OPERATIONS OF THE COOPERATIVE DISTRIBUTIVE ASSOCIATION OF THE FAMILISTÈRE SOCIETY OF GUISE, 1879-80 TO 1894-95.

As has been stated above, only holders of pass books in which purchases are entered can participate in profits. Other sales are treated as are purchases in private stores. The following table gives interesting details concerning the extent to which the stores are patronized, the amount purchased on pass books, the total number of pass books in use each year, the average value of sales, and the average amount of profits realized per pass book:

SALES AND PROFITS TO HOLDERS OF PASS BOOKS OF THE COOPERATIVE DISTRIBU TIVE ASSOCIATION OF THE FAMILISTÈRE SOCIETY OF GUISE, 1879-80 TO 1894-95.

The steady progression, not only in the number of pass books that are in use but in the average amount purchased on each book and by each family, shows, in a striking way, the constantly increasing extent to which the benefits of cooperation in the purchasing of supplies have been utilized. The increase is not due to the increased number of members of the society, for that has been but slight during recent years. The steady increase in the amount purchased by each family, though undoubtedly due in large part to the fact that fewer purchases are made elsewhere, would tend strongly to indicate the increasing material welfare of the members.

COOPERATIVE DISTRIBUTION.

BY EDWARD W. BEMIS, PH. D.

Many forms of cooperation are very little developed in the United States. We have none of the credit associations so common in Germany, nor the raw-material societies for the cooperative purchase of the raw materials used in small manufacture, also common in Germany. We do not have the cooperative labor gangs or societies for the collective undertaking of contracts for public and private work which are common in Russia and Italy, while our cooperative manufacturing is insignificant compared with the beginnings in Great Britain and France. The cooperative cooper shops in Minneapolis are only moderately successful. Of the eight shops existing in 1886 only the following four survive. Sharing in the general depression, none of these have been able to pay any dividends during the past three years other than 5 per cent interest on the capital in the case of the two older companies and 6 per cent in the case of the two others.

The Cooperative Barrel Manufacturing Company, started in 1874 with a small paid-up capital and a membership of less than a score, had a membership of 120 in 1885 and a capital of $50,000 in 1888. It now does a business of about $150,000 a year.

The North Star Barrel Company, started in 1877, is now doing a business of about $195,000 a year on a capital of $43,350. The membership was 77 in 1885, is 51 now, and will soon be reduced to 45. The capital, however, in 1885, was only $30,800.

The Northwestern Barrel Company, started in 1881, does a business of about $100,000 on a capital of $18,500. The capital has increased somewhat since 1886, but the membership has declined from 45 to 37.

The Hennepin Barrel Company, started in 1880, now does a business of about $275,000 a year on a capital of $47,200, and has a membership of 59. The capital was $38,000 in 1886, and the membership 52.

The introduction of machinery has led to less need of skilled coopers, and, therefore, many have withdrawn. All the members work in their own shops, and each of the latter employs from twenty to thirty machine tenders and boys. The cooperative shops could do all the work for the Minneapolis mills, but the latter refuse to give it all to them even at lower prices. There may be a fear of combination if the cooperative shops once secured all the trade. In the interesting account of the movement in the first report of the Minnesota bureau of labor statistics, 1887-88, it is stated that the cooperative workers, being capitalists, do not care to strike, and, therefore, the journeymen in the private

shops can not do so. When wages fall, the cooperative workers can stand it better than the others. Attempts to establish pooling arrangements between all the shops have always failed, sometimes through the refusal of a cooperative shop to unite, and sometimes through the breaking of the agreement by some private shop. The following very sig. nificant statement, taken from that report, deserves insertion, as it applies equally to many illustrations of cooperative distribution: "It may be worth while to remark that cooperation is not a religion with these coopers. They are not experimenting for the benefit of humanity. One of them might withdraw with his savings and set himself up as the proprietor of a boss shop without the slightest twinge of conscience or the remotest chance of being charged with the sin of apostacy. The president of one of the smaller shops had formerly been a member of one or two of the older and larger establishments, and withdrew to found a shop of his own in another town. He failed in the business for some reason, and came back to cooperation in Minneapolis."

Mr. William Angus, a graduate student of the University of Minnesota, who has supplied many of the facts in this statement, writes: "The cooperatives do not pay themselves quite as high wages during the busy season as the private companies pay their men; but the wages amount to more by the year, as the private companies generally rush business for a time and then close up entirely. The wages of nonstockowning employees are in every case exactly the same as those of stockowning employees for doing the same work; but in very few cases are the nonstockowning employed at the same work. They are generally busied with running the machinery, engines, etc., rough out-of-door work, and, of course, here do not receive as much pay."

Outside of these associations scarcely anything of the kind exists in America. The few small cooperative coal mines in Illinois are said by the State mine inspectors to have a bad effect on wages in their neighborhood by their readiness to sell coal at any price when trade is dull. The so-called cooperative furniture factories of Rockford, Ill., are really joint stock companies, with small shares, widely scattered among employees. Disaster has recently overtaken many of those at Rockford. Where every stockholder has an equal vote there is some tendency to keep up wages, even ruinously, at the expense of profits.

On the other hand, our farmers have made as great strides as those of Holland, Denmark, France, or Germany in the matter of cooperative creameries, and fire and tornado insurance companies. Our many very large fraternal life insurance companies are also cooperative. Our cooperative banks, or building and loan associations, have already been investigated by the Department. (a)

The present study, however, deals with another great branch of the cooperative movement which, beginning in England over fifty years.

a Ninth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1894. 6269--No. 6- -4