speaking, satisfying their employers by good work. The foremost leaders in this form of co-operation are socialists-not of a very revolutionary type-who look upon co-operation as the schoolmaster which is to lead working men to socialism. Whether it will do so remains to be seen. In the meantime this co-operation is producing good results. It is supported by what trade unionists there are, and seems destined to develop further under the more liberal tendencies of government now prevailing.

There still remains a good slice of the European Continent to deal with. Co-operation seems now busy everywhere. Russia has not a little of it. Servia and Roumania have quite recently assigned to it a recognised place in their national economy. Denmark has its little army of supply stores, doing very little business; but its agriculture has been altogether metamorphosed for the better by the adoption of co-operative methods, more especially for the joint sale of eggs and butter and the curing of bacon. Belgium is astir with co-operative banking, and its political parties, ultramontane and socialist, are waging fierce war upon one another with co-operative weapons. The Netherlands likewise are moving in the matter, excelling in businesslike organisation. Spain is following suit with an astonishing variety of co-operative enterprises, all in their very first infancy. In Germany and Austria co-operation is really less of a working men's movement than elsewhere. Combination amongst working men for any purpose has been long steadily discountenanced by the authorities. The effect has been aggravated by the peculiar preference shown by Schulze Delitzsch, the "father" of German co-operation, for very large shares, which frighten off small folk. It is the small tradesmen, the better-class artisan, the small owning cultivator, mainly, who join together for common economic action, in which education is readily allowed a place, but what are called "moral" objects are not encouraged, except in the large army of agricultural banks, which are for the most part "ChristianSocialist." By far the greatest part of German and Austrian co-operation is made up of banking, in a bewildering variety of forms. Next follows agriculture. Alike stores and workshops are little developed; but German tradesmen have a

co-operative speciality of their own in the shape of societies, which either purchase raw material in common or else sell finished goods. These societies were one of Schulze Delitzsch's pet hobbies, but their business does not amount to much.

This hurried survey, however rapidly taken, certainly shows that co-operation is everywhere making way. The typical character which it assumes varies very much according to the country in which it has settled down to do its work. Ideal in France, it becomes almost too business-like in England, almost too middle-class in Germany, quasi-socialist in the labour societies of Italy, a trifle political in the agricultural syndicates of France. It has grown so large in its extension-numbering probably something like 6,000,000 adherents already—that its followers have thought it advisable to combine in an international union, not merely for the purpose of joining forces for greater strength, but even more for learning from one another, mutually supplementing their deficiencies, correcting their defects, and creating something of a recognised "standard" by which to judge between co-operation and co-operation. They have severally a great deal to learn from, and, at the same time, a great deal to teach, one another. Their union is accordingly calculated to produce a better all-round type, to remedy abuses, to perfect practice, to inculcate good principles, and generally to raise practical co-operation to a higher level, and at the same time to push it forward. There is a great deal of work which in its own peaceable way it may do in all countries to improve the lot of the working classes, to spread education along with comfort and better economic conditions. In the settlement of the great social problem which is now before the world it looks as if it were destined to play no mean part. In performing that office one may well hope that it may succeed in realising the high ideals with which the originators of the movement, impelled by simple but powerful faith in their remedy, at a time when their method appeared like no more than a shepherd's stone to fling at the Goliath of abuse, set out upon their course, which has already led to tolerably material results, giving good promise of even better things in the future.

HENRY W. WOLFF.

WHY ENGLAND IS UNPOPULAR.

THE question which forms the title of this article is one which can only be answered, if at all, by defining what is understood by unpopularity. A man is commonly said to be unpopular, when he has many enemies and few friends; when his conduct and character, with or without due cause, are viewed with disfavour by his neighbours; and when any mishaps or disappointments, which may happen to him, are greeted by his acquaintances with an indifference closely akin to satisfaction. I am afraid it cannot be denied that England, as an individual member of the family of nations, fulfils each one of these conditions of unpopularity. The existence of a sentiment of what I may call international ill-will towards England is a fact, which the great majority of Englishmen find it difficult, if not impossible, to realise. If they expressed their real opinion, they would say, we do no harm to any country; we do a great deal of good to many countries; we try as a nation to be honest, just, and even liberal in our dealings; we promote the welfare of the world by our trade, our industry, and our enterprise; we allow all other countries to share. on a footing of equality in the markets which we open up and in the commerce which we create; we take a sympathetic interest in the affairs of foreign lands; we are the champions of Liberty, Enlightenment, and Progress, in every quarter of the globe; and yet we are asked to believe that we are universally disliked. Such, I am convinced, would be the ordinary view of the great majority of Englishmen. Nor do I doubt that, as a body, they attribute the holding of a contrary opinion on the part of a small minority of their countrymen,

to the vanity which leads men who consider themselves "superior persons" to show their superiority by dwelling on the alleged deficiencies of their own country, and on the unfavourable estimate supposed to be formed of her, and her people, by foreign nations.

I have no sympathy, for my part, with the critics who delight in extolling the institutions, the ideas, the usages of foreign nations, as compared with those of their own land. At the risk of being considered an English Philistine, I confess that long and intimate acquaintance with other countries has only confirmed the belief instilled into me as a child, that, take her all in all, England is more honest, more truthful, animated by a higher sense of duty, better fitted to govern herself, and to govern others also, than the rest of the world. This perfection of ours, to which I lay claim, is of course relative, not positive. In our churches the congregation confesses weekly that we are all "miserable sinners"; but I am sure every Englishman would add to this confession a mental corollary that we are not quite such miserable sinners as other people. More than this I do not claim, but this much I do claim. I so claim it, because I do not wish in an article which, from the character of COSMOPOLIS, is addressed to readers in foreign countries, as well as in England, to be understood as acknowledging that the unpopularity of England is due mainly to her own failings. I admit fully the existence of this unpopularity. But my object is to show that it arises from causes which, broadly speaking, are not under her own control. To paraphrase a well-known saying of Emerson's, there are three Englands: England as she sees herself; England as others see her; England as she believes that others see her. Each of these three conceptions of England is necessarily more or less inaccurate. But my own conviction is that the first of the three most closely resembles the original, while the last of the trio is most dissimilar from the real England.

Having stated this conviction of mine by way of protest, let me try and explain the causes which account, in my judgment, for the unfriendly view taken of England by her neighbours. Like most people who are, on the whole, well satisfied with their present position and future prospects, the English, as a

rule, trouble themselves very little about their past grievances or failures. But with other nations, which have not the same ground for contentment, this is not the case. There is not, I think, a first-class civilised Power in the world to whom England at different periods of her history has not given umbrage, or to whom she does not continue to give offence by the mere fact of her existence as an Empire. A cursory consideration will suffice to show that, in most cases, the resentment entertained towards England by other Powers is not unnatural, even if it is unreasonable. Take the case of France it was England's action which overthrew the military supremacy of France, both under the Grand Monarque and under the first Napoleon; it was England, too, which ousted France from India and North America. The decline of Spain and Portugal was due in the main to the folly of their Government and the faults of their people; but neither of the two nations can be expected to forget the fact that they were formerly near being masters of the world, and that the imperial position on which they once prided themselves has been appropriated by England. The Italy of to-day is more friendly, and has more cause to be friendly towards England than any other Continental Power, but Italy still recalls the days when Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, in lieu of England, held the command of the world's commerce Holland, in like fashion, bears England a bitter grudge for having deprived her of her commercial supremacy, and for having taken away from her the Cape Colony and New York. The share England took in establishing the independence of Greece, does not suffice to reconcile the Greeks to the opposition we have persistently offered to her aggrandisement at the cost of Turkey; while in the latter country the aid we rendered during the Crimean War is overshadowed by our acquiescence in the advance of Russia and by our action in detaching Egypt, in fact, if not in name, from the dominions of the Ottoman Empire. In Denmark, angry recollections are entertained of our bombardment of Copenhagen, of our destruction of the Danish Fleet, and still more of our desertion of the Danish cause during the Schleswig-Holstein war. In as far as Austria is concerned, there exist few causes of friction between herself and England; at the same time,