NEED OF ORGANISATION 10S 



time we lacked confidence among the very class that it was our 

 business to attract. The committee — quite unintendedly — took at 

 any rate the appearance of a political party hue. For some time I was 

 the only Liberal upon it, and co-operators, whose banner we were 

 supposed to be bearing, in consequence eyed us with undisguised 

 distrust. That left us few co-operators actually on the committee 

 without valuable support in our resistance to spurious, amateur 

 co-operation. However, we went on pegging away perseveringly, 

 and in the main undoubtedly pursued the right path. The societies 

 that we started were formed on the right principle, the self-help 

 principle, and have in the sequel unmistakably shown their unques- 

 tionable value by their action and development. It is a great 

 mistake to measure co-operative advance in early stages by the 

 number of societies formed. With money and influence you may 

 stamp them out of the ground as Pompey did his legions. The 

 proof is in their services and their staying. What you have to look 

 to first in co-operation is principle. If that is good, numbers are 

 sure to increase as results advertise them, whereas faulty co-opera- 

 tion, with whatever flourishes brought upon the scene, is sure to 

 bring about its own decay. We have, among other cases, seen the 

 advantages of andare piano on such lines, in India, where registrars 

 have advisedly to some extent restrained the impatience of would-be 

 co-operators, and have so kept their organisation safe. It is multum 

 rather than multa the organisers have to aim at. 



The gulf so created, as has been explained, between our society 

 and the Co-operative Union was happily bridged over in 1906, when 

 I took advantage of an invitation given to me to read a paper 

 before the Birmingham Congress to plead the desirableness of a 

 close entente between agricultural and industrial co-operation. 

 The Co-operative Union accepted my plea, and a joint committee 

 was forthwith formed, which took up the matter warmheartedly, 

 and so brought about a good understanding and collaboration, 

 showing itself in satisfactory results, in points alike of good feeling 

 and good business — which business developed both in buying and 

 selling, from and to co-operative societies. 



It has pleased Mr. Leslie Scott, K.C., the present chairman of 

 the now wholly transformed Agricultural Organisation Society, to 

 state publicly in an address given to the Farmers' Club and pub- 

 lished afterwards in the Journal of the Board of Agriculture, that 

 before his taking over the reins appointment of members of the 

 committee had been purely by nomination, and Mr. M. H. Carr, 

 the " Director General " of the Society, has repeated that statement 



