NEED OF ORGANISATION 85 



minimum of cost, making up by specialised technical skill for what 

 they lack of the " all-for-one," so as to be fully acceptable to the 

 co-operative producers, who, in America, are wont to look out for 

 all that they ought to get in money for their wares. Similar things 

 happen in Europe. There was a lively discussion some years ago 

 about an arrangement which the great Distributive Society of Basel 

 — one of the best-managed and keenest-eyed societies in the world — 

 had then concluded for the supply of butcher's meat on a very 

 large scale. In the end it was generally agreed that the committee 

 had done well, in the best interests of the Society, to accept the 

 bargain. The German Agricultural Co-operative Societies — who 

 had badly burnt their fingers in endeavouring to run nitrate mines 

 in Chile on " co-operative " lines, could not possibly have secured 

 a sufficient supply of potash salts advantageously in the same 

 way. They combined to bargain collectively — all existing united 

 organisations — with the mining companies, and obtained all that 

 they could desire — up to the War, which interrupted potash mining. 

 Another case in point is that of co-operative arrangements with 

 insurance societies — for insurance of societies' members on reduced 

 terms against various risks — which arrangements are very common. 

 The Raiffeisen and Haas co-operators of Germany are too wide- 

 awake to do as our own Agricultural Organisation Society has done, 

 that is, to set up their own little insurance society for themselves, 

 when — in a matter in which all success depends upon " bulk " and 

 " business " — they had large organisations to contract with. Our 

 Irish Agricultural Organisation Society showed itself as wise, con- 

 tracting for the purpose with the powerful and well-managed Co- 

 operative Insurance Society at Manchester. It is evident, therefore, 

 that we may do well in some cases to organise beyond the limits 

 of pure co-operation, at any rate till co-operation is strong enough 

 to carry the whole weight. 



When it comes to " Better Farming," we shall have to say to 

 ourselves that, if we want to organise agriculture effectively, we 

 shall have to begin by organising the men who carry it out. " The 

 farmer himself," so in full truth said, at the first " Organising ' : 

 Congress, held at Chicago in 1913, amid plaudits from the assembly, 

 the late B. F. Harris, President of the Illinois division of " Farmers 

 Educational and Co-operation Union," " is our greatest problem. 

 Certainly the best product of the prairies is not corn, but man, 

 and the quarter-section that produces a thinking man, full- 

 fledged in all his powers, may well be said to have performed its 

 mission." Buying, selling, dairying, maintaining granaries and 



