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(luced the idea to India but appointed official Registrars to make 

 it known and to organize and guide a cooperative movement. 

 It was the only possible course. The condition of agricultural 

 India obviously called for cooperative societies, although tlie peo- 

 ])\e had not thought the matter out and there was no conscious 

 demand for them. The great danger of the arrangement was the 

 possible officialization of the movement. Every Registrar on his 

 appointment at once becomes an enthusiast. He is convinced, 

 and rightly, that a widespread cooperative system would mean 

 the regeneration of the rural population. But he finds that the 

 educated classes, the natural organizing agency, are apathetic, 

 and the temptation to form societies by official means is strong. 

 The reports show that in most provinces this temptation has been 

 resisted. In India, as in every other country, the teaching of 

 experience is that excessive artificial fostering produces a weak- 

 ling growth. Government has shown the way. There are in 

 every province the beginnings of a healthy movement, which 

 grows more self-conscious every year, and which is gradually at- 

 tracting the interest of the educated classes. The future rests 

 with the people of India. An officially run movement on a wide 

 scale is a thing unthinkable. A popular movement, appealing 

 consciously to the interests of the agricultural classes, under gen- 

 eral official guidance, but supported by the energy of numbers of 

 local organizers, is eminently practicable. That is the ideal 

 aimed at. It is certain that wdthout that propelling popular force 

 the movement can never have vitality or spontaneity. 



IXDIA IS PREDOMINANTLY AN AGRICULTURAL COUNTRY. 



Agriculture in its many phases is by far the most im])ortant 

 interest, and merits the greatest share of attention. ^luch has 

 been done and more attempted to improve the situation, but the 

 picture is still dark enough. The agriculturist, the pillar of the 

 State, is paradoxically its weakest member. To the Mahajan's 

 credit one may, almost without exagg'eration, apply the cele- 

 brated phrase attributed to Louis XVT that it "supports agri- 

 culture as the rope supports the hanged." bYom first to last the 

 ordinary ryot is dependent on that credit ; he is scarcely even a 

 free agent. His methods of cultivation are primitive and often 

 wasteful, and in disposing of what crops he gets he can only ac- 

 ce])t such prices as the middleman chooses to oflfer. Wcrdc and 

 isolated, he is in no position to im])rovc his fortunes. And the 

 economic conditions are rendered harder to assail by the con- 

 servation of centuries and the improvidence that accompanies 

 blank j^ovcrty. The |)icturc' lias ]}vvn ])ainU'd a lumdred limes. 



co-opf:ration a factor for unity. 



It is possible that four years' work in conncctinn with co- 



