The Maccabaean

IN 1844 twenty-eight poor weavers in England organized the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society. They began their store with four commodities, keeping open only in the evening. They had vision and the philosophy. They worked out the details. How to make a co-operative store succeed. From that small beginning there has never been a recession.

Year after year unfailing success has crowned the movement. Today the co-operative societies in Great Britain embrace one-third of the total population. For forty years the movement has been growing five times faster than the population has increased. During the war the increase has been ten times faster. The co-operative societies of Great Britain distribute nearly $1,000,000,000 worth of commodities to their members annually. The "profit" or more properly speaking the savings, to their members amounts to $100,000,000 a year. Of this amount $65,000,000 are returned in cash to the members in the form of dividends, more properly called savings-returns. The British Wholesale Society supplies 1,200 societies with 4,000 stores. It owns its own steamships. It has thirteen great warehouses. It is the largest purchaser of Canadian wheat. Its flour mills are the largest in Great Britain. These mills turn out thirty-five tons of flour every hour for the people who own the mills.

In 1863, nearly twenty years after the birth of the Rochdale Co-operative Store, a central warehouse was established in Manchester by the representatives of a number of retails. At first it confined itself to the purchase and display of a few groceries. Soon a boot and shoe department appeared, then, in succession, drapery, furnishing, tea, architectural, printing and other departments quickly followed. Soon branches began to appear in various other cities with extensive and attractive salesrooms. Following these came great warehouses throughout the United Kingdom.