The Co-operator.

Labor is the foundation and cornerstone of any structure, the crucial element that holds everything together, like the root of a tree or the heart of a body.

But this friendly feeling, among the members generally, must not be left to chance and accident. It must not only be recommended as an advantage; it must be enforced as an imperative and paramount duty and obligation.

In the Society, he has insured himself against all these things: he cannot be ruined unless the Society be so too: and the ruin of a Society of labourers is an impossibility.

Co-operation removes the almost insurmountable obstacles to friendship, namely—self-interest, rivalry, jealousy, and envy.

A family is the place where we are to look for the purest and happiest feelings which man is permitted to enjoy upon earth. A family is a community as far as it goes.

Thus the principles of a Working Union or Co-operative Society, go as far as those of a Benefit Society, by providing for the members in sickness and old age. They go farther, by ensuring to the members constant employment out of their own capital.