124 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



concerns, in which to give their employees, as M. Secretan has put 

 it, a collective master in the place of a single one. That is, as we 

 have learnt from repeated strikes and threats of strikes in co-opera- 

 tive concerns, no dependable means of bringing about " industrial 

 peace." The co-operative producer attacks the task from the side 

 of labour. He begins by making his workshop his own. And as 

 he succeeds, the movement spreads, and so production becomes 

 generally " co-operative," while " labour " at the same time becomes 

 emancipated ; and placed in a position to assert its right at a much 

 earlier stage ; indeed, from the very start. 



The rural co-operative cultivator resorting to co-operative pro- 

 duction likewise aims at emancipation — emancipation, not from 

 an oppressive employer, but from the even more grinding tyranny 

 of a host of toll-taking middlemen or else the monopolising large 

 trader, who commands the one market, to the use of which the rural 

 producer is practically limited. Co-operative organisation, so it 

 has been found, will effectually shield him against both these 

 oppressive forces and make a free man of him. 



In some — for the present still only very few — cases the small 

 farmer or agricultural labourer will resort to co-operative production 

 for another purpose, namely, the cultivation, in common with 

 others, with a view to a better return from co-operatively occupied 

 land. Interesting as this subject is, and not without practical 

 importance in its bearing on the future, it will be more convenient 

 to consider under the head of land settlement. 



Of agricultural production as a preparation for collective sale, 

 we have in this country for the present still only a small volume, 

 and a small variety of forms to show. There is, above all, of course, 

 co-operative dairying, which the conditions of the hour have made 

 a practical necessity, which turns perishable milk into more time- 

 resisting butter and cheese, and which will soon, we may hope, 

 render us an additional, under a sanitary aspect, even more valuable, 

 service. In Ireland there is a very little tobacco-curing, less flax- 

 dressing, and already some little bacon-curing. Sugar-making, 

 although it almost imperatively requires the joining of forces of a 

 number of producers, cannot come into account as fully " co-opera- 

 tive," inasmuch as the substantial difference between the several 

 stakes is still found to militate against the principle of " one man, 

 one vote." 



On the Continent, and also in America, there is considerably 

 more co-operative production, let alone that the various forms here 

 enumerated have been extended over a far larger surface. Denmark 



