just described. A more
direct development of it was the formation, in 1864, of the Wholesale
Cooeperative Society, at Manchester, a body holding much the same
relation to the cooeperative societies that each of them does to its
individual members. The shareholders are the retail cooeperative
societies, which supply the capital and control its actions. During
its first year the Wholesale Society possessed a capital of L2456 and
did a business of L51,858. In 1865 its capital was something over
L7000 and business over L120,000. Ten years later, in 1875, its
capital was L360,527 and yearly business L2,103,226. In 1889 its sales
were L7,028,994. Its purchasing agents have been widely distributed in
various parts of the world. In 1873 it purchased and began running a
cracker factory, shortly afterward a boot and shoe factory, the next
year a soap factory. Subsequently it has taken up a woollen goods
factory, cocoa works, and the manufacture of ready-made clothing. It
employs something over 5000 persons, has large branches in London,
Newcastle, and Leicester, agencies and depots in various countries,
and runs six steamships. It possesses also a banking department.
Cooeperative stores, belonging to wholesale and retail distributive
cooeperative societies, are thus a well-established and steadily, if
somewhat slowly, extending element in modern industrial society.

*86. Cooeperation in Production.*--But the greatest problems in the
relations of modern industrial classes to one another are not
connected with buying and selling, but with employment and wages. The
competition between employer and employee is more intense than that
between buyer and seller and has more influence on the constitution of
society. This opposition of employer and employee is especially
prominent in manufacturing, and the form of cooeperation which is based
on a combination or union of these two classes is therefore commonly
called "cooeperation in production," as distinguished from cooeperation
in distribution. Societies have been formed on a cooeperative basis to
produce one or another kind of goods from the earliest years of the
century, but their real development dates from a period somewhat later
than that of the cooeperative stores, that is, from about 1850. In this
year there were in existence in England bodies of workmen who were
carrying on, with more or less outside advice, assistance, or control,
a cooeperative tailoring establishment, a bake