Page 81 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

Co-operation in the Seventies.
hard facts ring together as wedding bells, one will find a living
interest in economics. At the same time, material conditions of
themselves create neither marriages nor movements. The vifyour
that we find in the co-operation of the seventies largely arose
from the unrivalled appeal it then made both to working people and
social reformers. On the one hand, the times were ripening for
social changes. If there was no general elementary education before
1871, yet, with State-aided voluntary schools, mechanics' institutes,
co-operative societies' educational departments, a free press, and
other agencies, most of those who wanted a measure of knowledge
contrived to get it. Helped by such means, working people were
asserting themselves. The progress of the trade union movement
was shown by the growth of local trades councils in the sixties
(Lpndon, 1861), the institution of trade union congresses in 1868,
and the legal recognition of the unions in 1875. Townsmen haxi won
their citizenship in 1867; and the BaUot Act strengthened the sense
of freedom in 1872. In that same year Joseph Arch raised his
standard among the agricultural labourers. Besides these develop-
ments we must reckon the results of the acute religious controversies
of the period. The work of Darwin and Russel Wallace had led to the
propaganda of Huxley and Tyndall; and this, again, found a more
popular form in the lectures of Charles Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant.
One ellect of such issues v/as reflected at the time in Tennyson's
poetry and the novels of George Ehot, and elsewhere in the
congresses of the Social Science Association. Men's minds dwelt
more strongly upon social and everyday affairs. And while such
readiness for special progress was in evidence, there was, on the
other hand, no constructive social movement, except co-operation,
appealing to the democracy. The " municipal sociahsm " which now
has so large a place may be said almost to have begun under Mr.
Chamberlain's brilliant mayoralty of Birmingham during 1873-5.
Concerning Parhament, at a time when members took their five or
six months' hohdays undisturbed by autumn sessions, the cry was
"
raised, Help yourselves, for legislators are too busy to help you."
It is true that much valuable working-class legislation went through
both Houses, but it was mostly of a quiet and enabling order.
Except when Plimsoll forced certain reforms upon the Commons,
the advice to despair of Acts of Parliament was generally accepted.
The immature political labour movement in 1874, through which
Mr. Burt was first elected, soon died away. Amongst working-class
leaders the most advanced idea was not sociahsm but repubhcanism.
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