Cooperage

COOPERAGE. The trade of making casks of staves and hoops. The term is also applied to the factory where casks are made. The word is from "cooper," a maker of casks, derived from such forms as Mid. Dutch caper, Ger. Kiif er, Lat. cuparius; the same root is seen in various Teutonic words for a basket, such as Dutch tulip and Eng. "kipe" and "coop," but cooper is apparently not formed directly from "coop," which never means a "cask" but always a basket-cage for poultry, etc. Cooperage is of great antiquity; Pliny ascribes its invention to the inhabitants of the Alpine valleys.

The trade is one in which there are numerous subdivisions, the chief of which are tight or wet and dry or slack cask manufacture. To these may be added white cooperage, a department which embraces the construction of wooden tubs, pails, churns and other even-staved vessels. Of all departments, the manufacture of tight casks or barrels for holding liquids is that which demands the greatest care and skill since, in addition to being perfectly tight when filled with liquid, the vessels must bear the strain of transportation to great distances, and in many cases have to resist considerable internal pressure when they contain fermenting liquors.

The staves are best made of well-seasoned oak. Since a cask is a double conoid, usually having its greatest diameter (tech nically the bulge or belly) at the centre, each stave must be properly curved to form a segment of the whole, and must be so cut as to have a suitable bilge or increase of width from the ends to the middle ; it must also have its edges bevelled to such an angle that it will form tight joints with its neighbours.

Setting up the Barrel.

The staves being prepared, the next operation is to set up or raise the barrel. For this purpose as many staves as are necessary are arranged upright in a circular frame, and round their lower halves are fitted truss hoops which serve to keep them together for the permanent hooping. The upper ends are then drawn together by means of a rope which is passed round them and tightened by a windlass, and other truss hoops are dropped over them, the wood being steamed or heated to enable it to bend freely to shape. The two ends of the cask are next finished to receive the heads by forming the chime, or bevel on the extremity of the staves, and the croze or groove into which the heads fit. Finally the heads and permanent hoops are put in place. The heads, when made of two or more pieces, are jointed by wooden dowel pins, and after being cut to size are chamfered or bevelled round the edge to fit into the croze grooves. The hoops are generally of iron. The manufacture of slack casks proceeds on the same general lines, but is simpler in various respects, both because less accurate workmanship is required, and because softer woods, largely fir, may be employed.

Machinery of the most elaborate and specialized character has been devised to perform most of the operations in making both slack and tight casks, and though it involves considerable capital outlay it effects so great an economy of time that it has largely superseded hand labour. Barrels without separate staves are made by bending a sheet of wood, sawn from a log in a con tinuous strip, into the required circular shape, the bulge at the centre being obtained by cutting out V gores from the ends. Barrels are also made of steel, either of the ordinary bulging form or consisting of straight-sided drums provided near the middle with rings on which they may be rolled. Immense num bers of casks of different shapes and sizes are employed in various industries. Tight barrels are a necessity to the wine and cider maker, brewer and distiller, and are largely used for the transport of oils and liquid chemicals, while slack barrels are utilized by the million for packing cement, alkali, china, fruit, fish and numerous other products.

Co-operation in the sense of working together for a common result is as old as human nature. When primitive men hunted and their womenfolk prepared the meat there was elementary co-operation. In this sense Dr. Johnson wrote, of the larger and infinitely more varied economic order of his time, that "the business of life is carried on by a general co operation." Despite an obvious lack of intention, different activi ties did, in fact, work to one end. But that, at best, is unconscious co-operation ; even in its general sense the word usually is reserved for a designed common effort. Wishes are expressed that political parties should co-operate for some national object, or that there should be co-operation of labour and capital. These bodies or in terests are conceived as equal, and free each to take its own course. They are then asked to proceed together to a mutual end—to co operate.

The same implication of agents equal and free underlies the particular sense of the word in co-operation and the co-operative movement. Galley slaves pulled together ; but they did not co-op erate. In the gilds amongst the freemen of the English villages of the i5th century, as in the mujins or mutual-aid societies of Japan, and in the fruitieres of Switzerland, it was different. In these coun tries, as elsewhere, such bodies were voluntary, and they arose amongst groups of people roughly on an equality. Of the two prin ciples the voluntary element is even more necessary : in the Russia of 192o, when co-operative membership was compulsory and State control complete, the name "co-operative" lost all meaning. Free association is essential. In Britain this spirit of association, in which each seeks his own benefit through that of the whole, is shared by friendly societies, clubs, trade unions and other bodies. From these kindred movements co-operation diverges by applying itself to businesses such as usually are conducted for profit. A co operative society thus becomes a voluntary union of persons, on a democratic basis, to supply its members with goods and services, or to employ its members in producing for sale, or to sell its mem bers' produce, or to finance its members, or to combine all these aims in one, and at the same time to distribute surpluses in a man ner agreed upon by the members as fair to each and all.

Building societies may also come within the terms of this defini tion, but have never been included with co-operative societies in Great Britain. (See BUILDING SociEms.) Co-operation under any of these forms has roots which go back far into the past ; but it is the modern world which has both cre ated the need and given opportunity for the modern co-operative movement. This world came into existence when domestic hand labour, for domestic needs, was replaced by production in fac tories, for markets; when the peoples of Europe began to mass to gether in industrial towns; and when virgin continents became new factors in the world's life. At first, in Britain, the threatened workers co-operated in self-defence and to get for themselves the benefits of the new machinery. Then, gradually, a newer co-opera tion came into effect, namely, combination (on the same mutual lines) of the consumers massed in the spreading towns, to possess a larger share of the riches of the new production. Later, under the disturbing influence of new American food exports, there came the peasant co-operation of Ireland and Europe, again in self-de fence. Last of all, there followed a somewhat similar movement of exporting farmers, equally to benefit each individual member while pursuing the gain of the whole number. These different move ments we may now survey in detail, remembering, however, a fac tor sometimes overlooked. The success of "all for each and each for all" is seen to depend very considerably on the degree of knowledge and intelligence, of honesty and loyalty and of active self-direction and self-reliance possessed by each. Thus writers on co-operation in Asiatic countries have pointed out how illiteracy, dependence on others, unpunctuality, inertia and the spirit of faction-have checked or prevented the spread of the movement in the East; while elsewhere the zeal for education of the Rochdale pioneers is perceived to have been well-inspired. (For Co-opera tion in the United States see page 389.) CO-OPERATION IN GREAT BRITAIN Primitive Efforts and Failures.—Great Britain is the classic home of co-operation as a movement, and of consumers' co-opera tion in particular. As early as 176i a Fenwick weavers society in Ayrshire, Scotland, supplied its members with weavers' reeds, and also oatmeal for home consumption; and this was not the only Scottish effort. In England 1,40o inhabitants of Hull, to protect themselves "from the invasions of covetous and merciless men," managed in 1795 to establish the Hull Anti-Mill society, whose flour mill continued for ioo years. Again, in the dockyard towns of Devonport and Sheerness the high prices of the period of the Napoieonic wars quickened the more responsible workers into de vising societies to supply themselves at least with the most urgent necessaries.

But these spontaneous beginnings did not constitute a concerted movement. That came after 182o, with Robert Owen. By that time capitalist large-scale manufacture had so developed in Great Britain as to destroy much of the old domestic handwork. The new system had separated thousands of workers from the pur chasers of the products they handled; it had also assembled work ing populations in new industrial towns as massed consumers de pendent on new and unfamiliar sources of supply. Meanwhile England had escaped the direct effects of war and revolution, and devoted religious and secular teachers had created a capacity in many workers to be something better than industrial machines. Robert Owen, himself a capitalist, but fresh from his famous pio neer welfare work at New Lanark, found an immediate response to his teaching that livelihood and security could be gained through forming self-employing co-operative communities. In London in 1821 the Co-operative and Economical Society set out to create a community of families buying at cost price through its own co-op erative store, employing (gradually) its own members, and pro viding for both education and recreation.

The London society ended ; but its aims were born again in 1827, at Brighton, with active and wise support from Dr. King, a Brighton physician. Dr. King emphasized the store as a means to employing members in producing for the assured market of its or ganized consumers. Other propagandists were busy, and, though statistics are lacking, by 183o there were perhaps two to three hundred co-operative societies, two or more journals, and several paid co-operative missionaries. And co-operative congresses held in Manchester and Birmingham projected a wholesale society—in this case against Owen's advice. In 1831 the North-west of Eng land United Co-operative Company was established in Liverpool. Yet within three years all this effort and enthusiasm had faded like a rainy sunset. The societies aimed at capitalizing profits, in order to buy land and settle thereon communally. If they enjoyed any success (as at Brighton) in view of the distance to the com munal ideal, it became tempting to divide the capital. But success was rare. Co-operators found then, as many times since, that when shopkeeping (or other business) is made secondary to creat ing employment, on the principle that economic value inheres in labour and production independently of serviceableness, then even the simplest shopkeeping fails.

The Rochdale Pioneers.

At Rochdale this truth was soon to be proved in a happier way. There, in 1844, a simple idea was ap plied which revolutionized co-operation, and gave it a place in a world very rapidly outgrowing the pioneers' localized hope of an Owenite "self-supporting home colony of united interests." Two societies had failed in Rochdale; and to tread another path the Rochdale pioneers (the idea is attributed to Charier, Howarth) proposed neither to sell at cost nor to capitalize profits, but to charge the accustomed market prices and credit each member per sonally with his share of the surplus in precise proportion to his general purchases at the society's store. The idea was not entirely new. Scotland (Lennoxtown) and Yorkshire (Meltham) had har boured it (with Lyons in France) ; but by opening membership to all householders at the cost of only a shilling entrance fee, and by permitting members to withdraw accrued profits down to ix, as well as through systematic and commonsense capacity, combined with missionary zeal, the pioneers established their society and made its example infectious. Cash sales, liberal depreciation, the limited interest on capital (5%) and the educational grant from profits (21%) further commended the Rochdale system.

Enabling Acts and Expansion.

Four years later, in 1848, Maurice and Kingsley were joined by Ludlow, already afire with the idea of co-operative workshops, and the raising of the Chris tian Socialist banner attracted Hughes and Neale. The last three, especially, supported the northern co-operators, not only by advo cacy, but by legal and parliamentary help, both unsparing and un paid. Enabling Acts for friendly societies had developed since i793 and for building societies since 1836. In 1852 the first Indus trial and Provident Societies Act extended the area of sanction, 'and expressly legalized dividends on purchases. In 1862 a further act, amongst other changes, allowed the autonomous societies in creasing in the northern towns to federate, and so form a whole sale society related to the retail societies exactly as the latter were to their individual members. The co-operators immediately made good their project for the trading federation afterwards known as the Co-operative Wholesale Society. A similar federation was established for Scotland, and separate British federations for in surance and for publishing ; while the Co-operative Union of Great Britain and Ireland came into being as a general protective, legal, propagandist and educational association. George Jacob Holy oake, a prince of co-operative propagandists, and Dr. Watts, of Manchester, shared vigorously in this work with the Christian Socialists.

Yet the change which the pioneers had made, empirically, in shifting the practical co-operative appeal from the man in the workshop to the domestic consumer—the woman in the home— remained unperceived. The veteran Dr. King disliked the new dividend. Holyoake, Hughes and Neale supported it, but they lim ited pure Rochdale co-operation to "distributive" societies. "Pro duction," they held, should be differently organized, in workshops supplying the retail stores but self-governing ; and the "produc tive" workers should share the profits with the customers and with the providers of capital. It was J. T. W. Mitchell, a late-comer to the Rochdale band, who saw new principles in the Rochdale prac tices. He, for the first time, distinctly taught a consumers' co-op eration. Consumers were everybody. Consumers' needs were the reason for existence of all industry ; industry prospered as it served use and enjoyment. Consumers paid for all profits, distributive or productive ; it was the consumers who were entitled through co-op erative control to reduce their cost of living, and abolish poverty, by possessing and sharing all surpluses arising throughout industry. On this basis Mitchell looked forward to a universal co-operation based on the common needs of mankind, without distinction of class or race.

Emergence of Consumers' Co-operation.

Holyoake, Hughes and Neale (the latter becoming the self-sacrificing, honorary, working secretary of the Co-operative Union) opposed Mitchell with a sincerity equal to his own, with much superior literary and oratorical powers, and with all the support of the educated on lookers until, in 1891, Miss Potter (Mrs. Sidney Webb) wrote her Co-operative Movement in Great Britain. But as the indefatigable chairman of the English C.W.S. for 21 years, Mitchell saw "The Wholesale" succeed as distributor, as banker, and in industry after industry, as manufacturer for its organized market, while produc tive societies rose and fell. By its financial success rather than through any theoretical comprehension, his view triumphed. In bootmaking, printing and industries similarly open at the time to small-scale effort, a group of productive societies remained as an alternative source of supply for the retail stores and, in bootmak ing, a participator in Government contracts and export trade. These societies formed their own Co-operative Productive Federa tion and remained influential, especially in the English midlands, as a partner in the Co-operative Union. But the tide flowed with the consumers movement. Societies modelled on the Rochdale suc cess extended over Europe and gained a footing in the Dominions and in the United States. And where populations were too scat tered for consumers' societies, and the large, common economic in terest which is essential to co-operation was found instead in farm ing communities widely interested in a staple product like wheat, fruit or butter, the Rochdale system was adapted to serve the whole in a manner as equitable to each participator.

War-time and Later Extensions.

Britain, curiously, though the mother of co-operation, has continued to call her offspring by other names. The law, as further amended in 1867, 1876, r and 1913, speaks officially of "industrial and provident societies." Consumers' societies are classed as "distributive," and the title "consumers" remains officially unknown. But in Europe "societies for consumption" carry that name from France to Russia ; and in the United States the title "consumers" is also used. And in Brit ain as in France, Germany, Austria and elsewhere, the World War brought the basis of consumers' service to the front. The dif ferent governments found themselves obliged to work with the societies in recognizing the necessities of their nationals as con sumers, and in doing justice equitably to their hungry populations.

Thus the importance of organized consumption was emphasized, while high prices the world over drove consumers into co-operative membership. In Great Britain the number increased from 2,878, 648 consumer members in 1913, to 3,788,490 in 1917 and 557 in 1921. In 1927 the figure had increased to over five millions. This British increase was typical of the growth in other lands; and though many European societies had to strike off lapsed members, later on, there remained a large net increase.

After 192I the falling food prices which benefited consumers created a crisis in agriculture and stimulated ideas of co-operation there. Themselves farming 64,00o acres, the consumers societies were not unaware of what the fall meant. Relations were estab lished in Britain with the National Farmers' Union, and though in matters of general supply it proved difficult and sometimes impos sible to reconcile special functional societies—farmers and la bourers—with general societies of consumers covering the same areas, the existing movement for bringing agricultural societies into trading membership with the C.W.S. was considerably quick ened. In 1922, for example, the C.W.S. created a precedent by successfully extending to an agricultural society in difficulties exactly the same financial and administrative service which had re-established many subsequently prosperous consumers' societies. Through the same agency, the British consumers entered into new relations with Dominion farmers' societies, and with Russian operators and English capitalists in respect to Russian grain and other exports. When in 1927 an outcry arose because the Co-op erative Party agreed to facilitate its work by avoiding competition with the Labour Party, it was not quite realized how wide in other directions the contacts of the co-operative movement were be coming.

Their history has proved British co-operators true to type. Theorizing has rarely guided them or misguided. Oblivious to merely logical consequences, they have travelled in whatever direc tion promised success, provided the path approved itself to the instincts and common sense of their movement as a whole.