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operative societies affects one's sense of proportion. But there 

 is no one who has taken part in the work who does not regard 

 cooperation as incomparably the most promising means of at- 

 tacking the agricultural problem. And a perusal of these mono- 

 graphs confirms that conviction. To compare agricultural Europe 

 of the present day with the same Europe of the early nineteenth 

 century is to gain fresh hope for India. If rural India is back- 

 ward and her outlook discouraging, there was a time when conti- 

 nental Europe was little better. In the change, astonishing both 

 in its magnitude and rapidity, that has taken place in the West 

 cooperation is probably the most important factor. Rural credit 

 has been organized. The cooperative society enables the small 

 farmer to cultivate scientifically, to get good seed and manures 

 and agricultural machinery at cheap rates, to sell his crops to 

 the best advantage while avoiding the profit of the middleman, to 

 manufacture his dairy produce and sell it in the best market, to 

 improve the breed of his livestock and to insure his possession 

 against all risks. These are only a few of the directions in which 

 the cooperative principle has been applied. The movement en- 

 courages agricultural education and reaps the benefit in improved 

 cultivation and a stronger and more intelligent force within itself. 

 The societies form practically a huge unpaid agency for making 

 known and bringing into practical use in all parts of the country 

 the improvements of agricultural science and economy. 



Unless such a development is regarded as attainable in India 

 our present work is meaningless. We are still a long way off it. 

 and before it is reached there is much to be done in the way of 

 education and the breaking down of old prejudices and habits. 

 But the instinct of association is deeply implanted in the people 

 and the success that has attended the first experiments in coopera- 

 tive credit offers the promise of greater things in other direc- 

 tions. Hitherto the departments of agriculture and coopera- 

 tion have worked independently. In future their orbits must in- 

 creasingly converge. When the scientific department has demon- 

 strated the value of a particular method of cultivation or of an 

 improved implement, the cooperative society ought to supply the 

 channel, so greatly wanted, by which these improvements will be 

 carried down to the ryots. Even now some use is made of the 

 societies in this direction, and more might be done. If the two 

 departments so work together, and if, most important of all, the 

 people themselves and especially the more enlightened classes co- 

 operate, the history of the next fifty years will have much to tell 

 of improvement in the lot of the Indian peasantry.— .-^^(^n'rH/f/^'a/ 

 Journal of India, July, 1912. 



