NEED OF ORGANISATION 107 



to obtain the consent of a score of joint stock banks to advance 

 money to unquestionably solvent credit societies, the readiness of 

 that well-equipped and co-operatively sympathetic bank ought to 

 have been an attraction. 



Surely nobody, with the most potent wishing cap upon his head 

 and the boldest imagination, could have asked for anything better, 

 or, indeed, half as good. And it was we, of the independent Agri- 

 cultural Organisation Society, who had planed the way for alliance 

 with this body, for the picking of this ripe fruit. Mr. Bunciman, 

 when President of the Board of Agriculture, had at any rate laid 

 it down that by the side of his own one directing " representative," 

 who was to have the casting vote, there should be two representa- 

 tives of the Co-operative Union on the committee. 



With a degree of folly not to be equalled, the new Board, after 

 Mr. Runciman's retirement, broke down all this useful edifice that 

 we had carefully reared up — at a time, be it pointed out, when dis- 

 tributive co-operation already had its own views about the proper 

 utilisation of agricultural land, which seem to bear a rather threaten- 

 ing aspect for farmers and might be considered worth propitiating. 

 Inclining to Socialism, distributive co-operation claims the manage- 

 ment of such land for the consumer. It already owns or rents 

 enormous breadths of land to farm for its own purposes, and it is 

 employed in systematically extending its operations. With the un- 

 rivalled advantages at its command for raising produce intensively 

 and turning it to profitable account, that is a safe business. Was 

 that a foe deliberately to provoke to hostility % 



However, one fine day the two members of the Co-operative 

 Union — still continuing as " Governors " on the " Board " of the 

 Society — were coolly informed that their presence there was no 

 longer desired. Here was a slap in the face, the discourtesy of 

 which could not be concealed. Naturally the members of the Union 

 took offence. There were already sore points between the two 

 bodies, which sensible people were endeavouring to heal. There 

 was " overlapping." Distributive societies had sat still and said 

 nothing, while the two bodies were friends and allies, but now 

 that war was openly declared they were no longer willing to stand 

 such things. It could occasion no surprise to see a proposal brought 

 forward at the next Co-operative Congress to form an independent 

 " agricultural section " of the Union, or that such resolution was 

 readily passed. It could no more occasion surprise that the Co- 

 operative Wholesale Society, ready equipped as it was, should take 

 the matter into its own hand, organising a huge agricultural 



