ABSTRACT
The committee, urged on perhaps by the representations of the members at their periodical meetings, proceeds to make the necessary inquiries as to experience elsewhere, probable outlay involved, etc., and decides that it should be possible to make the project a valuable and paying department of the society. In this case, co-operation is breaking new and important ground. The starting of productive departments of distributive associations is the natural and economic sequel to the possession of a fairly assured market, and of the necessary capital. It is the modern practical business-like and somewhat restricted form that the hopes of many forerunners of co-operation took when, as at Rochdale itself, they hoped to 'organize the power of production'. 'The interests of the consumer' have thus come to be the accepted explanation of the dominant motive, the productive enterprises in which they frequently engage, and the phrase fairly represents their point of view.
