On the other hand, attention may be called to the fact that the retail trade, and especially the marketing of food, has been so slightly reduced to an art, it is still so empirically and wastefully carried on, that there are many possibilities of reasonable success of co-operatives. For a time, at least, this will be true if the undertaking is on a modest scale and does not seem worthy of attack by a relatively powerful group. Among the obvious wastes are those connected with the transportation (cross freights), the display and salesmanship, the marketing of novelties, and the use of the indefinite measures. Besides these there are the bad debts resulting from careless credit transactions, the waste involved in deliveries of packages, the waste of the repeated purchase of articles known to be regularly needed. Wherever any group can be led to consider the wastes involved in these methods of doing business, their good sense will make them perceive easily the folly of persisting in those ways, and the practice of this minimum of self-restraint will serve as a basis for a considerable balance, out of which dividends may accumulate. The use of the co-operative idea has, therefore, great possibilities as the basis for discussing the wastes of the present system and for deliberation as to the best or as to any possible way out. In other words, experimenting in democratic organization in obtaining the necessities of life is an important next step. As in the matter of copartnership in relation to housing, co-operative distribution may serve as a point of departure, an object lesson worthy of closer study and experimental imitation. Especially would the experience of the Women's Co-operative Guild be helpful in bringing the idea to the attention of the influential women among the various groups. The importance of doing this cannot be overestimated. For, as has been so often suggested, the wastes of retail dealing, while probably not so great here as in some other countries, are so enormous that great economies are possible from even a slight rationalizing process.[43] The development of a general consciousness of the nature and extent of these wastes would in itself serve as a corrective. Moreover, the experience of the co-operative enterprise may often be carried over into legislative policy, and in this way give to the community the benefit of the experiment tried by a group. Co-operators in England have both initiated and backed such social legislation as the Trade Boards Act, the provision for general maternity care under the Ministry of Health, and other measures. FOOTNOTES: [32] See Freund, _Police Power, Public Policy and Constitutional Rights_, secs. 319-321. [33] _Report of the United States Immigration Commission_, vol. vi, pp. 318, 319. [34] _United States Immigration Commission Reports_, vol. vi, p. 95, "General Survey of the Bituminous Coal Mining Industry." See also pp. 650, 651.