Excerpt from Co-Operative Production: Address to the Annual Conference of the Co-Operative Societies, Held at Halifax Here I may appropriately observe that the absence of large employers of labour on occasions such as this should not be construed, as if it im plied any want of interest in our proceedings, or unwillingness to take trouble to promote the ad vancement of the manufacturing population. The true interpretation is to be found in the exceeding pressure, to which, in the keen competition of industry and commerce in the present day, every man of business is inevitably subjected. Every moment of his time, all his powers bodily and mental, are exhausted in the race; and the task of aiding and encouraging the self-helping efforts of the people, a task, in which I venture to say most employers would, if they could, most gladly take their part, must of necessity remain in the hands of their more fortunate brethren, who have leisure to devote to social and philanthropic work. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.