Competition raises wages,if the supply of labourers is limited,and can never lower them,unless the supply is excessive.As Cobden is reported to have said,the real question is simply whether two masters are running after one man,or two men after one master.No one could speak more emphatically or forcibly upon this.point,nor does he seem to have ever abandoned it.Both Mill and his disciples saw the only solution in a different direction.Co-operation is their panacea;and they are never tired of appealing to the cases of its successful operation,beginning with M.Leclaire's experiment in France and the Rochdale pioneers in England.The pith of the doctrine was already given in the famous chapter (136)upon 'the probable futurity of the labouring class'due to Mrs Mill's influence.His hope for them lay in cooperation,and later editions only differed from the first by recording new experiments.Cairnes deduces the same conclusion from his wage-fund.The labourer can only improve by ceasing to be a 'mere labourer';profits must 're-inforce'the wage-fund;co-operation shows how this is to be done,and,constitutes the one and only solution of our present problem.'(137)Thornton reaches the same conclusion,co-operation giving the only compromise which can end the internecine contest.He can only express his feelings in poetry,and his last chapter upon 'labour's Utopia'is written with creditable skill in the difficult terza rima.Fawcett fully shared this enthusiasm;and the reason is sufficiently obvious.
Co-operation,in their sense,means simply the joint effort of independent individuals.Competition is assumed to remain in full force.All combinations,as Mill says of trades-unions,must be voluntary.That is an 'indispensable condition of tolerating them.'(138)The member of a co-operative society is as free to join or to leave as the shareholder in any commercial company.
The societies compete with each other and with capitalists at every point.'Supply and demand'regulate every part of their transactions.The motive for joining is simply the desire of each member to invest his savings,and therefore the vis medicatrix is duly stimulated.Each man can thrive better by working in concert;but he resigns none of his rights as an individual.He has not enlisted in an army bound by discipline,but has joined in a voluntary expedition.
