Page 370 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

The Story of the C.W.S. a
the other side of the matter altogether. Labour has been exalted,
but no artist has seen an ideahsation of the consumer in the baby at
the breast, or a man on horseback, or a poet warming " both hands
at the fire of Ufe." Press and pulpit have awakened to the labour
movement ; it has become almost a virtue that the consumer should
be sacrificed and that things should not be cheap. One ought almost
to apologise in getting air for nothing and piu'e water (where it
is a pubUc provision) for next to nothing. In this unreflecting state
of the world the Cinderella of the idealists' household can only act
in self-defence. No body of consumers could " captm'e " the labour
movement, for (quite rightly) its inner circles are open only to those
who have worked in some particular organised trade. But in the
consumers' movement all doors stand open. The delegate cannot
be asked whether he comes to defend or exploit. The newspaper
writers and critics who come down to co-operation from above never
can be required to give their numbers, and quote their last quarter's
purchases. It remains for the consumers' movement itself to defend
itself. Of the people and for the people, it does not oppose the
labour movement ; it is in hearty sympathy. But it knows that a
true social order cannot be reached through the business of wage-
earning only—that there is at least another way of approach,
deserving an equal respect. The consideration that we have seen
so frequently forthcoming from the co-operative side must be
returned. Then a possibility may open for a better union of the
people's forces for the people's good. Indeed, since man does not
Hve by bread alone, whether by making it or distributing and
eating it, plainly there are many energies to be reckoned with,
spiritual, artistic, scientific, educational, as necessitated by the
complexity of that desired end, a full, free, human Ufe for all—
fact which leaves the consumers' movement, basing itself upon
human needs and uses, theoretically still in the better position for
becoming a democratic rallying point and centre of union.

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