468 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



obtained a decree of bankruptcy against the estate, and 

 all the stock and movable property were appropriated and 

 sold by auction. The Association was held to have no legal 

 claim, the agreement was declared to be invalid, and the 

 members were treated as mere labourers having no rights 

 whatever be3^ond their weekly wages. Property which 

 they had themselves bought, as well as the surplus 

 stock and crops against which several of the members 

 held labour-notes to the amount of £50, were all con- 

 fiscated ; and this oasis in the desert of Irish misery, this 

 little " heaven upon earth " as the people around were 

 accustomed to call it, became a thing of the past. Mr. 

 Craig, however, determined that none but himself should 

 lose their savings, and by selling his own personal effects 

 and borrowing the balance from friends, succeeded in re- 

 deeming all the outstanding notes, and, so far as he was 

 concerned, leaving no stain on the honour of Ralahine 

 and the New System, which he had so judiciously in- 

 augurated and so successfully supervised during the three 

 years of its existence. 



The Teachings of Ralahine. 



Having thus given a brief history of this notable 

 experiment, from the various fragmentary indications in 

 Mr. Craig's interesting but very excursive and rather 

 confusing little volume ; supplemented by the more con- 

 nected account by Mr. W. Pare, I wish to call special 

 attention to some of the lessons to be learnt from it, which 

 are of very great importance at this time, when writers of 

 authority assert positively, that any general system of 

 co-operative industry must fail on account of certain 

 deficiencies in the character of workers as a class.^ 



1. It is said, again and again, that the majority of men 

 will not work without either the dread of starvation or 



1 Mr. Craig's book is called The Irish Land and Labour Question, 

 illustrated in the History of Ralahine and Co-O'perative Farming, Triihner 

 and Co. 1882. Another work, Co-operative Agriculture in Ireland, by 

 William Pare, F.S. S. , Longmans, 1870, gives a more connected account 

 from personal observation of the same experiment, and of some others. 



