EDITORIAL-A PROGRAMME. THE steady growth of interest in the whole group of subjects connected with Economics and social life has been a marked feature of recent English life and thought. On the one hand, there has been a quickened sense of responsibility for the conditions under which the poorer members of the community live; and, on the other, a new departure in Economic thought has relaxed the dread of interfering with natural laws formerly felt both by professed Economic teachers and by the world at large. The increased interest, due to these causes, is bound up with an industrial transformation, which has produced a widespread restlessness. It seems as if, in the period before us, questions as to the relations of nations would sink into insignificance beside the question of the relations of classes. Each age has its own problem to solve: the problem of the present age is that of social reconstruction. All the more earnest of the younger generation, as well as many who are older, are seeking for principles to guide them through the tangled mazes of social and industrial life. How far can the old formulæ explain the present facts? What is the teaching of Economics for practical life? Or, if Economics disclaims the functions of a guide, where else are we to look for teaching as to the duties of a member of the body social and political? It is to the discussion of such questions as these that the Economic Review will address itself, and, in so doing, it will have a special character of its own. It is primarily intended for the study of duty in relation to social life. It will, therefore, contain articles dealing with what may be called Economic Morals from the point of view of Christian teaching. A great deal of work has yet to be done in this department. A model B both of precision and of subtlety is to be found in the economical sections of the "Summa Theologica" of St. Thomas Aquinas. But the greater complexity of economic relations, as well as the more rapid change of economic conditions, render the task more difficult than it was in the thirteenth century. It is impossible, however, to draw a sharp line between the spheres of the Economic Moralist and of the scientific Economist. If the Economic student cannot altogether put aside the practical bearings of his conclusions, and must therefore allow their due weight to other than purely economic considerations, still less can the Moralist afford to dispense with a clear knowledge of the facts in forming a judgment on his duty with regard to them. This opens a wide field. On the side of history much attention has been given of late to the filiation of leading Economic systems, but there is still room for further work, especially as to the connection of the Economic and Social views of different periods with their general thought tendencies. Again, in Industrial History there is most ample scope for English writers, much of our knowledge hitherto having been derived from German sources. The Review will contain articles both on the history of Economic theory, and also on industrial and social history. But this by no means implies that the Review will be the organ of those who lean to historical methods. It will have as warm a welcome for those who believe in the possibility of a body of Economic teaching based in large part on the labours of bygone Economists. Though the fight between the two schools still rages somewhat fiercely, there are not wanting signs that their supporters are beginning to find that their positions may be consistent with one another, and we may therefore look to see the growth of a new and larger Economics, using history and not abusing theory. If the Economic Review can, by giving adherents of the two schools a common meeting-ground, help them to understand one another better, it will be doing something to advance Economic studies. Further, the greater attention given to the scientific observation of the facts of social life has shown its difficulty. Obser vation of this kind needs minds at least as carefully trained as those of successful observers of the facts of organic or inorganic Nature. The aim of the Editors will be to make the Economic Review a centre of information as to the best methods of social research, and possibly to initiate inquiries on various points relating to the condition of the labourers. One feature of the Review, which they hope will be useful to students, will be a quarterly conspectus of English legislation on social subjects, and a summary of the rich stores of information contained in parliamentary blue-books and other official documents. To this will be added from time to time reports on the progress of social and economic legislation in foreign countries. The Review will give a fair field and no favour to Socialists and Individualists alike. No project of social reform, however radical, will be excluded, provided it is supported by reasoned arguments: no defence of the existing order, however conservative, but will be admitted, if its logic is sound, and its point of view scientific. With party politics the Review will have no concern: it is written for those who are trying to see more clearly, apart from political or class prejudices, their duty as citizens and as Christians. It only remains to say that the Editors are grateful to Professor Marshall for his generous words about the Review at the opening meeting of the Economic Association; and that they look for instruction from the Economic Journal which the Association proposes to issue. There is ample room, as they believe, for the two ventures; and, though no exact division of territory is at present possible or desirable, yet the Journal and Review will represent complementary points of view, and lay stress on different aspects of social life. Lastly, the Editors beg to thank their many friends for the promises of support so liberally given to them; and they appeal to their list of contributors as the best justification of a difficult and responsible undertaking. OXFORD, THE EDITORS THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF CO-OPERATION.1 E have all, I believe, found in our personal experience that a time of success and prosperity is, in an especial sense, a time of trial. Success, though it must of necessity be incomplete, tends to satisfy us. It leads us to substitute a part for the whole; to acquiesce in the less which we have gained, and to forget the greater at which we aimed-perhaps to rest contented with material profit, and to lose the spiritual aspirations which have been, indeed, the very soul of our efforts. It is with societies, also, as it is with men. And in studying the records of co-operation, I cannot but feel that the movement is, in fact, endangered by the great, continuous, growing success of its distributive organization. No one, indeed, can fail to rejoice at the economic and moral results which have been obtained by the stores, retail and wholesale. They have largely confirmed and extended uprightness and trust in small dealings; they have stimulated and they have sustained thrift; they have secured economy in exchange; they have accumulated a large capital, which is available for fresh enterprises; they have influenced trade beneficially beyond their immediate range. They have also gained an opportunity for their directors to show, on an impressive scale, what the administration of a retail business ought to be for the highest interest of all who are engaged in it, in regard to hours, and participation in surplus profits, and in pensions. The opportunity will, I trust, be wisely and openly used. But, however highly we rate these results, gained already or still to be gained, we must confess that in themselves they do not touch the real problem which lies before co-operators-the problem of our age, the problem of capital and labour. And 1 An address given at the Co-operative Exhibition, Tynemouth, September 3, 1890, by the Right Rev. Brooke Foss Westcott, D.D., Lord Bishop of Durham. therefore, gentlemen, if you pause here and go no further, though you may multiply your gains of this kind a hundred fold, though you may reach the utmost possible limit of cheapness and of purity for the benefit of the consumers, you will have to acknowledge that a great hope has been defeated and a great work has been abandoned. You will have confined yourselves to commerce and exchange, and have left untouched the weightier and more difficult matters of industry and production. You will have ministered abundantly to individual interests, but you will not have effectually quickened the spirit of social service. All that you have done will be capable of being adequately explained from motives of enlightened or even superficial self-interest, and may at last actually increase the spirit of competition, which is the most directly opposed to the spirit of co-operation. I venture, then,-and you will pardon the boldness of an outsider who necessarily regards your mission in its widest range -to ask you to turn once again to the programme of the Rochdale Pioneers, the heroic founders of living co-operation, who clearly foresaw what was involved in the full realization of the principle which they had grasped. The reform of distribution was for them the first step; and it was, in fact, the only possible step towards the reform of production, the extension of education, the development of the whole man for the service of all men. They recognized, with far-seeing faith, that co-operation-the active association of man with man for truly human ends-embodies an idea of universal application to life, that it is the foundation of a social and not merely of a commercial structure-the watchword of a new order. And the great leaders of co-operation have always guarded this noble tradition. They have had the courage to do the little work which lay before them, and still have kept their eyes steadily fixed upon the distant goal. They have indeed mastered that lesson which is difficult to our half-generous impatience that that which is permanent must grow slowly; and I trust that they have also abundantly experienced that which is the most enduring joy of man-the realization in the future, through the energy of faith, of the fruits of their own travail. |