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that no knowledge of general principles will avail without a 

 knowledge of the conditions of tropical countries. But in 

 Ireland we had to supplement an agrarian revolution, which 

 was about to transfer, and has now about half transferred, 

 the agricultural land of the country from a small class of 

 landlords, largely regarded as aliens, to a numerous class 

 of cultivators, mostly peasant proprietors. The State, by 

 the advance of some ^200,000,000 sterling, and large sums 

 given as a free grant, are carrying out this huge trans- 

 action, but they are doing nothing, and could do nothing, 

 or could not do much, to make the necessary changes in the 

 social economy of the agricultural classes which would be 

 required in order to enable the new owners of land to prosper, 

 and to fulfil their huge obligation to the State. We laid 

 down, after years of thought and experiment upon the 

 question of a satisfactory rural economy, two main proposi- 

 tions. The first is that if you want to solve the modern 

 problem of rural life that is the problem of inducing and 

 enabling people to maintain a decent standard of comfort in 

 a rural existence in these days of world-wide competition 

 you have to approach the problem from three points of view. 

 You have to look upon agriculture as an industry, as a 

 business, and what is perhaps more important than all, as a 

 life. You have to bring into industry the teachings of 

 modern science, into business the methods of our modern 

 business, and into life a scheme of social attracl 'on and 

 amenities ; certain intellectual advantages which will enable 

 rural life to resist the lure of the city. The first proposition 

 is, then, that you have to deal with the problem on its three 

 sides; and the second, that you must deal with the business 

 of farming, and the chief reform you have to make there is to 

 introduce methods of combination. We live in days when 

 everything has to be done in a large way to be done to pay 

 and when the small producer is at the mercy of powerful 

 middle interests, trusts, combines, and so forth; so that the 

 first thing is to get a sound economic basis by teaching the 

 farmers to combine, and the only method of combination 

 which is suitable to farmers, as we all know, is not the joint- 

 stock method, but the co-operative movement. I have always 

 felt that the reason that agricultural co-operation lags so far 

 behind the reason why even in this Congress it is not 

 thought necessary to give more than an hour or so out of a 

 week to the discussion of agricultural co-operation is that in 



