miners, the possession of a few pits on the co-operative principle might probably prevent a recurrence of the strikes and lock-outs to which we have become so familiar, and would doubtless result beneficially to the public at large. Suppose that at the time of the lock-out of the building trades in London the societies had themselves been in a position to take contracts, and thus to have employed one-fourth of the workmen at average wages, the combination of employers would probably have been prevented, and a speedy solution of the difficulty would have been arrived at-possibly an arrangement to pay wages at per hour instead of per day, so as to enable men to choose whether to work for nine or ten hours might have settled the question. At any rate, if the workmen had been prepared to take the field as competitors for jobs with the masters, they would soon have settled for themselves, by the demand for labour at their prices, whether or not the public could afford to pay ten hours' wages for nine hours' work. The extra reward for labour, in accordance with the prosperity of the concern, is a great but not the greatest object in these co-operative manufactories. The fact that every man must feel that success depends on his own exertions, that the quality of his individual work will facilitate or prevent the sale of produce, will render each workman habitually careful, will prevent waste and extravagance of material, and will thus induce habits of consideration and frugality in all the business of life, and be of great importance in the education of children, thus extending the benefit to all future generations. We are told that the cloths produced by some of the joint-stock manufactories, where many of the workmen are also shareholders, hold the first rank in the Manchester market, and the considerations above suggested prevent such an announcement from exciting any surprise. His Grace the Duke of Argyll, in his speech at the annual meeting of the Lancashire and Cheshire Mechanics' Institutes, said that joint-stock companies for spinning and manufacturing, with a nominal capital of 600,000l., had been registered under the Limited Liability Act during the last two years. Dr. Watts gives a list covering more than a million sterling in Lancashire alone; and we learn that several companies have been originated in Yorkshire also. But so far as we know, Rochdale alone has a true claim to the term co-operative,' and to this model we would specially direct the attention of working men. Joint-stock companies, with extensive proprietories, will raise some working men into the rank of employers; but from various causes the shares will slowly and surely accumulate in few hands, and will leave the bulk of the working class poor as ever. But the Rochdale plan, whilst injuring no one, will gradually and as surely elevate all who are Warnings to these Societies. 309 are connected with it, and its general adoption would result in improved wages, increased frugality, and higher morality of the working classes generally. 6 We are anxious, before concluding this article, to say a word of warning to the friends of co-operative enterprises. These societies have only been rendered possible by the passage of the Limited Liability Bill.' Many persons who, according to their light, are friendly to any measure of progress for the working classes, gave to that bill strenuous opposition upon the ground that it would lead to undue speculation by its facilities for the manufacture of fictitious capital; that companies would be started in every direction and for every possible purpose; that selfish managers holding only a few nominal shares would contract debts in every direction, and leave the bankrupt estates to be wound up in Chancery with no' assets for creditors. It is unfortunately true, that there is no good thing which is not liable to abuse, and it is not to be expected that so long as we have rogues in society they will cease to scheme for a living out of the earnings of honest men; yet we think that no worse exposures are likely to result in Chancery from limited liability companies than have already appeared from joint-stock and private banks and individual firms in Chancery, in Bankruptcy, and in Criminal Courts. But the benefits to be derived from the principle of limited liability are so numerous and so great that we are anxious to secure for it a better reputation than the old plan either has or deserves to have; and we hope to see the same doctrine prevail in these co-operative companies as in the stores-viz., to leave to others the manufacture of cheap stuff, whilst their chief care is to make honest stuff; to leave to others to work for appearance only, whilst they work for utility as their chief feature; to leave others to make stuff to sell, whilst they make it to wear. Another principle of the stores they will do well to observeviz., to confine themselves as much as possible to cash transactions; in all cases to buy only for cash; and as this will necessitate that in the main they shall also sell for cash, this plan will keep them out of many difficulties. At present we are surprised at the rapid progress of these companies, and we find their large profits quoted in prospectuses for the establishment of new ones, as in the silk districts of Coventry and Nuneaton, where for the present the ribbon trade is suffering a sort of mesmeric sleep, arising from the combined and overpowering influences of a wintry summer, a panic at the sudden loss of protection, and the vagaries of Dame Fashion. But the homes of the cotton manufacture are Lancashire and Lanarkshire; and as a man opening a new shop goes into the locality where shops of the same kind throng most, so that he may share the casual custom, so the best chance for extensions of the cotton trade are in its present homes. It is curious how short a distance deranges deranges the necessary materials for success; and it is a problem which remains yet to be solved why the cotton manufacture has never thrived much in Warrington, which is only half the distance of Manchester from the chief port for the ingress of the raw, and the egress of the manufactured article; why it has failed or kept up only a struggle for existence in Hull, in Liverpool, in Bristol; or how in Leeds men contrive to make princely fortunes by the manufacture of sewing-thread; whilst in Bolton a keen, thrifty, and in the main a prudent man loses just as rapidly. But the fact is so; and we augur no great success from the planting of the cotton-seed in Warwickshire, not only because of the difficulty in acclimatizing the industry, but because the present depression in the silk trade cannot be permanent. There is no textile material so beautiful as silk, none so deliciously rich to handle, none capable of such delicate fine shades of colour, none which resists the effects of dirt so well; and we are not yet prepared to admit either the superior mechanical ingenuity or capability to labour of the foreigner over the Englishman. Silk will again assert its supremacy in Warwickshire, and cotton will remain in its present home. Sixty-five years ago cotton was spun in Coventry; but the exotic died out, as the woollen manufacture died out in Warwick before that date, its only records being in history and heraldry. Failures of limited liability companies we may expect, whether established for the benefit of shareholders, or for the operatives also; but we hope that every succeeding year will add to the store of experience and to the general education of working men, so that their manufactories shall not yield an extraordinary proportion of failures in any future crisis. And if these societies on the truly co-operative plan do extend,. there will also be an end to strikes and lock-outs on account of Boards of conciliation and arbitration will not be needed, nor shall we have any renewal of the short-time agitation, for men will not need to strike against themselves, they will not need arbitrations other than their own rules provide for, and they will dictate their own hours of work, without a public agitation and without asking the legislature to interfere either by enacting the definite hours for labour or by restricting the motive power. ART. Colportage and Book-Hawking. 311 ART. III.-1. Colportage, its History and Relation to Home and Foreign Evangelization. By Mrs. W. Fison. Wertheim, Macintosh, and Hurst. 2. The Book-Hawker, his Work and his Day. By the Rev. H. G. de Bunsen. 3. Book-Hawking. By the Rev. Nash Stephenson. 4. Reports of Book-Hawking Society for 1859, 1860. 5. Report of Religious Tract Society for 1860. 6. Occasional Papers and Reports of Pure Literature Society. 7. Notes of Progress of Religious Tract and Book Society of Scotland. 8. The Missing Link. By L. N. R., author of The Book and its Story.' Nisbet and Co. 1860. N a former number of this Review, when writing on 'Free Libraries for the People,' we alluded to the importance of providing other machinery to reach the intellectual necessities of our population in agricultural districts and isolated dwellings, the different circumstances in which the inhabitants of town and country are placed, requiring certain adaptations to accomplish a given purpose for each. But alike throughout all parts of Great Britain, until we possess a more educated population, the aggressive agency of the Colporteur or Book-Hawker is needed to aid mental progress, and excite the desire for reading in the minds of those, who are not sufficiently enlightened to appreciate the advantages offered by the public library. Hence we regard Colportage as not only supplementary but indispensable to the full realization of all the benefit our country will derive from the Free Libraries Act.' The relations of colportage to the religious and social progress of the people are so numerous and important, while its capabilities are as yet so imperfectly recognized, that we are doubly anxious to bring the subject, in some of its bearings, before our readers. We shall first view colportage in its aspect as an aggressive evangelizing agency. Its records, as given us in the book we have named above, attest its remarkable power and efficiency. The term colporteur' is of French origin, from col, 'the neck,' and porter, 'to carry,' and has been from an early period applied to the bearer of religious books from house to house. Even centuries before the Reformation travelling merchants carried about with their wares manuscript chapters, and sometimes entire copies of the Scriptures. The devoted pastors of the Waldensian churches often acted the part of hawkers, that they might thus gain access to the dwellings of the rich, and offer them those treasures that money could not buy. When the Bible became accessible accessible to all through the medium of printing, large editions were circulated in France, Switzerland, and other parts of the continent by colporteurs. D'Aubigné, in his valuable History of the Reformation,' shows that both the press and personal Christian effort were well employed by Luther and his successors in effecting the greatest of all moral revolutions since the dawn of Christianity. He says: Farel and his friends consigned the books to certain pedlars or colporteurs, simple and pious men, who, laden with their precious burden, passed from town to town, from village to village, and from house to house, knocking at every door.' And as early as 1524, there existed in Bâsle a Bible Society, a Tract Society, and an Association of Colporteurs for the benefit of France. When the Bible of De Sacy was published in France in 1666, we find the same agency employed to put it in circulation throughout the kingdom, and we know from Beza that several colporteurs were afterwards burnt to death by the Romanists for having thus circulated the word of God; but in 1685 the fatal revocation of the Edict of Nantes led to the entire suppression of this important evangelizing agency. In Great Britain, although we can find no mention, at such an early period, of colportage being systematically employed, yet from the writings of Baxter and other eminent men before and after his time, we gather that the distribution of good books by hawkers was considered a work of great importance; and Baxter remarks that he would rather be the author of books to be carried in pedlars' packs to the poor man's door, than of books to stand in golden libraries.' The revival of colportage on the continent of Europe is associated with one of the most interesting events in the religious history of the present century, viz., the formation of the Free Church of Geneva. The evangelization of France was a subject of the deepest interest to the devoted men who founded this church; and we believe we are correct in ascribing to their zeal the first re-employment of colporteurs in that country and Switzerland. The first employed was a Frenchman, named Ladam, who had served under Napoleon. He began his work in 1820, being superintended by Henri Pyt, one of the ministers of the Free Church. At the third anniversary of this church there were eight colporteurs engaged in the work; and ere long so great was the success of their labours in France, that the British and Foreign Bible Society was led to introduce the system of colportage as a part of their machinery, and considerably more than 100 colporteurs are now engaged in the work throughout France. In fifteen years these men have circulated in that country nearly 1,700,000 copies, and in many cases the seed thus sown has awakened a desire for the pure ministry of the word, numerous Protestant |