use of their funds by
their officers was not punishable; and that each member was
responsible for the debts of the whole society. Eight or ten statutes
have been passed to cure the legal defects from which cooeperative
associations suffered. The most important of these were the "Frugal
Investment Clause" in the Friendly Societies Act of 1846, by which
such associations were allowed to be formed and permitted to hold
personal property for the purposes of a society for savings; the
Industrial and Provident Societies Act, of 1852, by which cooeperative
societies were definitely authorized and obtained the right to sue as
if they were corporations; the Act of 1862, which repealed the former
acts, gave them the right of incorporation, made each member liable
for debt only to the extent of his own investment, and allowed them
greater latitude for investments; the third Industrial and Provident
Societies Act of 1876, which again repealed previous acts and
established a veritable code for their regulation and extension; and
the act of 1894, which amends the law in some further points in which
it had proved defective. All the needs of the cooeperative movement, so
far as they have been discovered and agreed upon by those interested
in its propagation, have thus been provided for, so far as the law can
do so.

Cooeperation has always contained an element of philanthropy, or at
least of enthusiastic belief on the part of those especially
interested in it, that it was destined to be of great service to
humanity, and to solve many of the problems of modern social
organization. Advocates of cooeperation have not therefore been content
simply to organize societies which would conduce to their own profit,
but have kept up a constant propaganda for their extension. There was
a period of about twenty years, from 1820 to 1840, before cooeperation
was placed on a solid footing, when it was advocated and tried in
numerous experiments as a part of the agitation begun by Robert Owen
for the establishment of socialistic communities. Within this period a
series of congresses of delegates of cooeperative associations was held
in successive years from 1830 to 1846, and numerous periodicals were
published for short periods. In 1850 a group of philanthropic and
enthusiastic young men, including such able and prominent men as
Thomas Hughes, Frederick D. Maurice, and others who have since been
connected through long lives with cooeperative effort, f