viii INTRODUCTION 



one which called for the combined energies of a 

 Royal Commission, rather than one that might 

 legitimately be regarded as within the scope of 

 an individual investigator. But a Royal Com- 

 mission would have been difficult to get ; its 

 inquiry into such a subject would have extended 

 over a considerable period, and the results would 

 have been stated in ponderous Blue-books, which 

 the persons most concerned would probably never 

 have read. In these circumstances there seemed 

 to be advantages in the direction of dealing with 

 the subject at once from a more popular stand- 

 point, and in such a way as would have a better 

 chance of reaching the interests affected, even 

 though the treatment of the matter might be less 

 exhaustive than that which it would have received 

 at the hands of official inquirers. 



Avowedly, therefore, the present volume at- 

 tempts to give no more than a general survey of 

 that movement in favour of agricultural organi- 

 zation which, as will be seen, is now spreading 

 practically throughout the civilized world. Severe 

 compression has had to be adopted in order to 

 get such a survey within the limits of a single 

 volume of modest proportions, and much that 



