The control of agencies of distribution by the workers at a certain
stage in their development enables them to start productive enterprises
with more safety and less expense in regard to advertisement than the
capitalist can. In fact the co-operative store, properly organized,
creates a tied trade for the output of co-operative workshops. It is a
source of financial aid to these, and will invest funds in them and
assist trades unions gradually to transform themselves into co-operative
guilds of producers which should be their ultimate ideal. As I shall
show later on, the store will enable the urban worker to enter into
intimate alliance with the rural producer. Their interests are really
identical. In every town in Ireland efforts should be made to
democratize the distributive agencies, and the workers will have many
allies in this, driven by the increased cost of living to search out the
most economical agencies of purchase. If the proletarians are not in a
majority in Ireland--a nation where the farmers are the most numerous
single class--they certainly form the majority in the cities; and the
co-operative store, while admitting to membership all who will apply,
ought to be and would be sympathetic with the efforts of labor to
emancipate itself, and would be a powerful lever in its hands.
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