have gone to individuals or to trusts, went back to the people. Instead of the common people's money going to build up great fortunes, it returned to the homes that might otherwise be barren of comforts, bringing at least a measure of those things which make life worth the living. Already over two million of people are banded together in the British co-operative societies, and that number is rapidly increasing. They have established, not alone retail stores, but also warehouses, wholesale houses, manufactories, transportation facilities, banks, printing establishments, home building societies, and almost every kind of commercial enterprise. Sooner or later the trust must fall before this co-operative movement in England, and then will competition, backed by concentrated wealth, receive its death-blow.

The idea of co-operation has seemed good to many other peoples-France and Germany now possess many co-operative workshops, stores and agricultural societies. Austria, Switzerland, Holland, Italy, Sweden, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, collectively count a co-operative membership reaching into the

millions. Co-operation means more than the saving of money for the obtaining of physical comforts. It has a spiritual side. "It exists to make life better." "These co-operators believe that this movement will work to destroy race prejudice, break down national barriers, obliterate armaments, and bring about universal peace." Great as has been the good accomplished by the wonderful Rochdale movement started by the Toad Lane weavers, the London slum still exists, and co-operation has not yet touched the starving millions of the submerged tenth. The evolution of the common good is not yet complete in England, or in any other favored nation. But England

has had a vision that there is a still more excellent way of levelling up the world's workers, of dispelling poverty, and of giving every man a chance. It has said, "Let the public utilities be publicly owned and operated and then the rates will be reduced and better service secured for all.'

No city has ever undertaken such humanitarian work, or made such effort to use its municipal powers for the good of its lowliest citizens, as the great city of London; and yet,

when the London County Council was formed, no one ever dreamed that one day it would not only operate valuable franchises but would outdo the whole world along the line of municipal trading. Fifty years ago, trade held sway, the city lacked in artistic ideals, and was filled with grafting scandals, familiar to American ears. In self-defence, parliament created a new kind of board to administer the affairs of the greater city and gave them extraordinary powers. This council is composed of 118 members, chosen by the qualified voters; and 19 aldermen, otherwise chosen. These all serve without pay and consider it a high honor to be of service to their fellow-men. The business of this council is to provide whatever can be provided by government to make life safer and more comfortable. The story of what this great council has undertaken and accomplished reads like that of a peaceful revolution. It has secured a majority of the street railways, and operates them in the interests of the people. It has some two score housing enterprises, putting many millions into an effort to make comfortable and healthful homes for its congested population.

For instance, it has covered 225 acres of Tottenham with flat houses, accommodating many thousands of persons. It has built cheap lodging-houses, straightened and broadened streets, let the light into innumerable tenements, built bridges, doubled the park area, opened playgrounds and baths. In place of building a bridge across the Thames at Woolwich, it runs a free ferry. It runs municipal theatres and is trafficking and selling like an ordinary merchant. This is going a long way toward reaching those beneath the line, yet there is a vast population still denied opportunity, and what is a man without a chance to live?

Many other English cities are coming to own public utilities, and so rapidly is this absorbing of private business going on that a careful investigator claims that "private ownership of franchises abroad is doomed." This again is England's effort "to protect the less fortunate from greed, to keep the weak from being the prey of the strong, to deal with the situation in which one man has too much and another too little, in which power gravitates into the hands of a few to the injury of the many."

Public ownership, as one method of solving these problems, has gone beyond the days of experiment. Few persons there are who would return to the old days of private ownership and competition.

The list of English cities which have taken over or built new street-car systems is a long one, and while not all lines have returned great profits, thereby lowering taxes, yet because these railways owned and operated by municipalities, "supply vast populations with frequent, comfortable, quick, and wonderfully cheap transportation," this method is preferred to the old way which is characterized by an almost utter disregard for the interests of the public.

Gas, electric, and telephone companies are rapidly being absorbed by the cities as their franchises run out; one-third to one-half of the cities now owning these utilities, giving the people far better results at cheaper rates. Scores of other large cities as well as London are now building model tenements and cottages to take the place of the miserable habitations of the slum dwellers. Lodging houses conducted by municipalities are increasing in