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there is kindly touch, mutual helpfulness and a feeling of cohesion, 

 there is the work which our great Co-operative Union has made its 

 own, but which has thus far made but little impression upon our 

 rural world. What excellent service it may render we see on a 

 small scale in the county of Lincolnshire, on a larger in Switzerland, 

 where the country has profited by the benefits offered as much as 

 have the towns. Our Ministry of Agriculture will apparently not 

 look at this, in truth the most important side of rural reconstruction, 

 nor yet its dependent, the officialised Agricultural Organisation 

 Society, which has, as if of set purpose, rudely shown the door to 

 the representatives of the Co-operative Union, whom we, in my time, 

 advisedly did our best to bring into alliance with ourselves. The 

 United States Department of Agriculture is a good deal more wide- 

 awake in this matter, recognising and appreciating its high im- 

 portance. It particularly lays itself out — in consonance with the 

 principle laid down by Mr. Roosevelt — to cultivate this province of 

 work, success in which cannot fail to react most beneficially and 

 stimulatingly, both upon agriculture as a calling, through its county 

 agents and special officers, and upon the nation at large. Not content 

 with stimulating the organisation of village communities, it also 

 urges actively to the formation of co-operative distributive societies, 

 village stores, of which species of organisations we have some 

 specimens working well, but only comparatively few. The 

 " farmers," so it appears to be thought in Westminster Broadway, 

 do not need the plebeian institution. We found, in my time, when 

 we advisedly joined hands with the Co-operative Union, a very 

 different state of things prevailing. Once the connection with the 

 Co-operative Union had been established, our large farmers showed 

 themselves most keen upon benefiting by the privileges of store 

 membership and, indeed, at the close of the year, it was found that 

 our agricultural members had bought very much more from distri- 

 butive societies than they had sold to them. It is a mistake to 

 despise " the day of small things." Ten per cent, saved on the 

 purchase of articles is an economy worth cultivating for the large 

 man as well as for the small. For the small men in the villages or 

 their isolated settlements the establishment of stores, with their 

 carts plying from house to house, means a great deal, and signifies 

 a great deal more than the mere cheapening of domestic require- 

 ments. For the organisation of co-operative distribution brings 

 about the social binding together of those who deal at the store, 

 closely in towns, very much more closely in the country. There is 

 a freemasonry among " co-ops.," which tends to hearty social union 



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