At a remarkable meeting held last Saturday in Manchester, to
present a testimonial to Mr. Thomas Hughes, Q.C., for his valuable services as Chairman of the Co-operative Union, the Bishop of Manchester in the chair,it was publicly announced that a Hughes scholarship at Oriel had been established as a tribute to Mr. Hughes's services to the Union ; and that the first scholar, taken from the ranks of labour, had just been elected and cordially welcomed to Oriel. lb. Hughes, in accepting this equivalent for the personal testimonial which the Co-operative Union had desired to press upon his acceptance, delivered a very interesting speech on the meaning and purpose of the Co-opera- tive movement, which he declared to be the recognition by the working-class that the principle of competition is not the right foundation of productive and com mercial operations, but rather the principle of mutual help, the Christian principle of "Bear ye one another's burdens." On this point Mr. Hughes spoke with his usual vivacity and earnestness, but did not succeed in proving that competition either can or ought to be eliminated from amongst the true !springs of commercial energy. Competition, within limits, need not be, and ought not to be, an ignoble principle. In well-regulated life of all kinds, concert is kept vivid and healthy by reference to a certain amount of competition, and without that external competition, the concert itself would soon become feeble and half-hearted. To our minds, the truth lies between the doctrine that competition is everything, and that concert is everything, as we have endeavoured to show in another column.
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