The creation of co-operative stores ought to be the first
constructive policy adopted by Irish labor. It ought to be as much a
matter of class honor with them to be members of stores as to be in the
trade union of their craft. The store may be regarded as the
commissariat department of the army of labor. Many a strike has failed
of its object, and the workers have gone back defeated, because their
neglect of the commissariat made them unable to hold out for that last
week when both sides are desperate and at the end of their resources.
But it is not mainly as an aid to the strike that I advocate
democratizing the distributive trade, but because control over
distribution gives a large measure of control over production. The
history of co-operative workshops indicates that these have rarely been
successful unless worked in conjunction with distributive stores. The
retail trader is not sympathetic with co-operative production. As the
cat is akin to the tiger, so is the individual trader--no matter on how
small a scale he operates--a kinsman of the great autocrats of industry,
and he will sympathize with his economic kinsmen and will retail their
goods in preference to those produced in co-operative workshops.
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