The same considerations which have led people to
co-operate in purchase and sale have very naturally also
prompted them to join their individual forces together
for the execution of work of a class which is best carried
out in common and, once machinery and "power" appeared
on the scene and came to be profitably employed in Agri-
culture, also for the obtainment of such. Similar
Co-operation is practised in Industry. We have our
co-operative workshops and factories ; and, as regards
" power," such is freely subdivided among the cutlers
of Sheffield — although not on co-operative hnes — for
the use of a number of small producers. In its most
elementary forms such Co-operation is probably as old
as the human species. Among its earhest known appUca-
tions — ^not to enter too fully into historical details —
we have the fruitieres of the Jura, using common plant,
the alpage societies in Switzerland pasturing members'
cattle in common, and the wateringues in Belgium, from
which the French associations syndicates , now represented
by close upon 6,800 societies, have sprung (about a year
ago there were 6,749), and which are closely related to
the German Deichgenossenschaften regulating the flow of
water and providing for surface drainage eind irrigation.
The lastnamed three varieties are to a large extent forced
upon riparian owners by law, and endowed with powers
as public bodies for executing their appointed functions.
WORK, POWER AND MACHINERY. 275

The German Deichgenossenschaften for the most part come
under this description ; and so do practically all Belgian
wateringues. In France there are some associations
syndicates, prescribed by law, others merely " authorised,"
which means that, to entitle them to enforce their will in.
