WORKSHOP PLUS LAND. 213 



wards of £700 owned collectively by poor Irish 

 peasants and worked by them co-operatively. 



With the creation of Small Holding Co- 

 operative Societies, and large farmers' Agri- 

 cultural Societies, which are now steadily on 

 the increase, we hope to see a better class of 

 agricultural machinery used on our small and 

 large farms. But without co-operative effort I 

 fear we shall witness with the extension of small 

 holdings a retrograde movement taking us 

 back again to the sickle and the flail. 



There are many who would not regret this. 

 I was once lecturing before a society composed 

 of middle-class and working people who had 

 made somewhat a fetish of the Simple Life. 

 I was advocating the collective use of the milk- 

 ing machine, Canadian water-mills, and manure- 

 carriers and distributers for the stock-keep- 

 ing small holder. As I have had to clean 

 out my cowsheds many a time, as well as 

 milk the cows, and also to draw water from 

 distant ponds, I had a somewhat intimate 

 knowledge of unclean hard drudgery. 



Thereupon a lady in the audience, expen- 

 sively gowned by Liberty, vehemently pro- 

 tested against my ''pernicious doctrine" and 

 spoke of the beauty of a pastoral life, in 



