COMBINATION AMONG FARMERS. 105 



of the workshop to the workers. The division of profit in the 

 store is made according to the amount of custom, and in the 

 workshop according to the amount of wages. The original 

 object of co-operation was to establish self-supporting com- 

 munities distinguished by common labour, common property, 

 common means of intelligence, and recreation. They were 

 to be examples of industrialism, freed from competition. 1 



It is evident that, so far, the farmer is not very much 

 helped to understand the meaning of the application of 

 co-operation to agriculture. 



A better definition for our purpose is one given by 



M. Georges Michel, which is quoted by Le Comte de 



Rocquigny in his interesting book, " La Co-operation de 



Production dans l'Agriculture," published in 1896. It is 



as follows : — 



La co-operation est une entente entre des personnes qui 

 reunissent leurs forces pour lutter avec succes contre les 

 obstacles qui s'opposent aux individus et pour etre capables 

 d'offrir ou d'obtenir des avantages superieurs a ceux qu'elles 

 pourraient offrir ou obtenir si elles restaient isolees. 



We get here the principle — combination for such 

 objects as can be more advantageously achieved by 

 mutual agreement than by isolated effort. What are 

 those objects ? 



No one can dogmatise for the country as a whole. One 

 cannot say that this or that object will everywhere be 

 better achieved by co-operation than by individual enter- 

 prise. The nearest approach one might get to such 

 generalisation would probably be in regard to the purchase 

 of artificial manures, feeding stuffs, and other articles 

 required in farming. Putting aside possibly the farmer- 

 princes — to coin a word — the men occupying very large 

 farms and having ample capital (although I know some 

 who are members of local manure-purchasing co- 

 operative associations), it is almost, if not quite, in- 

 variably true to say that farmers would gain by combina- 

 tion for such a purpose. The difficulty, of course, or at 

 any rate one of the difficulties, is that, while the smaller 



1 Holyoake, " The Co-operative Movement of To-day," p. 1. 



