364 



revelation of the power of a new economic force which has its 

 beginning's in remotest history. 



To the ordinary Enghshman the word cooperation suggests 

 vaguely a form of urban, shop-keeping. In Great ilritain co- 

 operative methods have made little headway outside the towns. 

 1 he country is still one of large holdings farmed by men, indi- 

 vidualists by instinct, who have not yet felt the need of combina- 

 tion. If the movement towards small holdings, inaugurated by 

 the act of 1907 and officially blessed by both parties, develops, it 

 will shortly be found that an effective cooperative organization 

 is an indispensable condition of success. But for the present we 

 must look to Ireland and to foreign countries in order to see 

 what cooperation in agriculture can effect. 



These monographs tell the story; it is a plain tale of facts and 

 figures, all the more remarkable because it covers a period of little 

 over 50 years. Last century was one of awakening and activity 

 in every branch of human affairs. The strain and competition 

 and the progressively centralizing tendency of commerce and in- 

 dustry reacted on the agricultural world. The stress of life grew 

 steadily harder : a growing 'population demanded more intensive 

 cultivation and a more productive soil, and these could be ob- 

 tained only by utilizing the costly improvements of technical 

 science ; while the increasing opposition of the commercial world 

 and the growth of outside economic concentration compelled the 

 closest attention to the interests of agriculture. 1 lad the small 

 farmer clung to his isolation he would have gone to the wall. 

 Fortunately, when the economies and saving power of association 

 for common ends were demonstrated to him, he developed a 

 genius for it. The amazingly rapid development of cooperation 

 is the one great fact of recent agricultural history in Europe ; it 

 extends not to one or two countries, to certain branches of agri- 

 culture, but to every country where the small holder exists and 

 to every department of rural economy. And the movement has 

 been wholly for good. In towns association is to some extent a 

 dividing force, applied to the defence and assertion of sectional 

 and class interests at the expense o-f others. I>ut in rural areas it 

 is more i)urely utilitarian and is generally a bond uniting all 

 classes. 



co-oi'i:r.\ti\"I': work in i.vdia. 



India, short though her cociperative history is, occupies a seri- 

 ous ]jlace in this volume. The inclusion of her monograph is 

 useful, because it ])rings her methods and lines of work and re- 

 sults into ]>rominent contrast with those of otlur countries. I lir 

 com])arison is instructive, and those who are interested in thr 

 Indian movement will lin<l tlu- volume suggestive and illumin- 

 ating. 



Of all the points of variance by far the most i)r()minent is the 



