80 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



the technicalities of the agricultural calling. But " agriculture " 

 as a whole is as strange to them as architecture or medicine. On 

 the other hand their aid must be invaluable in securing the confidence 

 and sympathy of small men — for whom of course in the largest 

 measure agricultural organisation is intended, and who are constitu- 

 tionally apt to shy at " big men." Their accepted principle is 

 democratic of the purest type, such as alone can attract small 

 cultivators and keep co-operation on right lines. And they are 

 in command of an ideal market for agricultural produce, such as is 

 nowhere else to be met with, and for which the preferential use of 

 the taxpayer's purse, and other facilities and privileges accorded 

 on political grounds by favouring continental governments, supply 

 no equivalent substitute. However, this precious " gold," being 

 ready to their hand, our agricultural authorities have deliberately 

 spurned, while accepting for a time — and for a time only — what 

 was evidently meant more for a " label " and " drawboy " than for 

 real services, the presence of " co-operator " members on their 

 committee. The unwisdom of the rejection of these men has 

 already declared itself in the formation of a special " Agricultural 

 Section," which the Co-operative Union, eager to help according 

 to the best of its power, in " repeopling the land " and diffusing 

 popular prosperity, has formed within its midst and which is deve- 

 loping exceedingly well and is sure to prosper. Its emissaries 

 being of the same stock as those whom they are intended to attract 

 and teach, and being well understood to know their wants, are sure 

 to have the " ear " of those whom they address and whom we wish 

 to see settled on the land. When the Agricultural Organisation 

 Society placed itself under government orders for the sake of 

 pecuniary help to be given, the reason stated by one of its leaders, 

 now a noble lord, was that it would thereby gain not only money 

 but what was more valuable, " recognition." In a propagandist 

 movement the " recognition " to be sought is that of the people to 

 be gained over. Thus, in a wanton way has the nascent agri- 

 cultural organisation movement been needlessly cut in two, with 

 the prospect of generating rivalry and antagonism — of which the 

 first heralds have already appeared on the scene in the shape of 

 " co-operative " objections to " overlapping " as between the two 

 movements. It is a thousand pities. 



The inclusion of the existing co-operative movement in the newly 

 developing agricultural organisation movement is indeed most 

 strongly to be desired. There is nothing to create organisation 

 and all that pertains to it, like co-operation already established. 



