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VISIONS OF VICTORY 33 1
socialists in the German Reichstag are numerous, but on
a fair system of representation they would have two or
three score more representatives than at present. However,
this, too, is of little consequence, and in no wise
disturbs the thoughtful socialist. The immense progress
of his cause completely satisfies him, and, if the rate
of advance continues, it can be only a few years until a
world victory is at hand.
If, now, we turn from the political aspects of the labor
movement to examine the growth of cooperatives and of
trade unions, we find a progress no less striking. In
actual membership the trade unions of twenty nations in
1
191 had amassed over eleven million men and women.
And the figures sent out by the international secretary
do not include countries so strongly organized as Canada,
New Zealand, and Australia. Unfortunately,
it is impossible
to add here reliable figures regarding the wealth
of the great and growing cooperative movement. In
Britain, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, and Switzerland,
as well as in the Northern countries of Central
Europe, the cooperative movement has made enormous
headway in recent years. The British cooperators, according
to the report of the Federation of Cooperative
Societies, had in 1912 a turnover amounting to over six
hundred millions of dollars. They have over twentyfour
hundred stores scattered throughout the cities of
Great Britain. The Cooperative Productive Society and
the Cooperative Wholesale Society produced goods in
their own shops to a value of over sixty-five millions of
dollars ;
while the goods produced by the Cooperative
Provision Stores amounted to over forty million dollars.
Seven hundred and sixty societies have Children's Penny
Banks, with a total balance in hand of about eight million
dollars.
The members of these various cooperative