4 Success (m [/16 Edge

are many varieties of co-operation, from barter of the most informal kind to co-operative institutions formally organized on the Rochdale Plan or some other such standard structure. Tignish has been a co-operative community from the beginning. For over a hundred years, it has had formally organized institutions, the first of which were the grain banks of the 1860s. Since 1937, it has had institutions organized according to the Rochdale plan as interpreted by the Antigonish Movement in the 19205 and 305. In fact, because of these co-operatives, Tignish is very much better known in several ”developing countries” than it is in Canada. And its long, mainly successful, record of co-operation is what makes it worthy to be known and honoured in its own country.

Tignish as it is today is not a community to be imitated in detail, but it does operate on a simple model that could easily be reproduced elsewhere. Although Tignish is far from being a perfect community, it has survived, grown, and sometimes even prospered, largely because of a combination of these three attributes. The story of its first two hundred years provides a number of examples of how Tignish succeeded, as well as indications of what happened when one or more of these factors was weakened.

This book is not a chronicle, and I am neither an economist nor a sociologist, but an historian who likes to determine the practical application past events can have in the present and future. When I discuss economic or sociological matters, it is from the point of View of an ordinary person who likes to know what works and why.

While this book usually follows chronological order, it aims to concentrate on those persons and factors which had the greatest impact (positive or negative) on the mixture of the attributes mentioned above. As a result, the picture