CO-OPERATION 



Irish history is sad reading. Our part in it is not a part of which 

 we need be proud. It has been characterised by oppression, some- 

 times oppression by intent, sometimes oppression by misunder- 

 standing. The Irish themselves have been much to blame. They 

 have not done what they might have done to make the most of 

 things. But the result, whatever the contributing cause, has been 

 the neglect of education, the destruction of trade, and the poverty 

 of the people. 



Foreign Competition 



This was the condition of affairs when the small farmers of 

 Ireland had to face a world-wide competition. There was, on the 

 one hand, the competition of the prairie farmer, who gets his land 

 for little or nothing, who can grow crops on virgin soil without 

 manure, who, though far away, can place produce on the British 

 market at less than the best and biggest British farmers can grow 

 it. There was, on the other hand, the competition of the small 

 farmers of the Continent, where education has been to some extent 

 perfected, and land tenure is adapted to the needs of the farmer ; 

 where intensive cultivation has increased the produce of the soil, 

 and at the same time added to its fertility ; where co-operation is 

 a fine art; and where transit by land and sea is so low that the 

 Continental farmer is able to reach the English market at less 

 expense than the Irish farmer. 



Revival of Agriculture 



In any circumstances, it would have been impossible for the 

 Irish farmer to overcome the competition of the prairie farmer. 

 The only hope of the Irish farmer lay in beating his Continental 

 rivals, who possessed no natural advantages. Now, two things, 

 above all others, have contributed to the success of the Continental 

 farmer — education and co-operation. If it had been possible, 

 Ireland would have perfected its education first, but you cannot 

 educate a people at once, and Ireland had to do somethmg at once, 

 and put up with all the disadvantages which a bad education 

 entails. It was possible, while laying the foundation of a national 

 system of education which would stand the next generation in 

 good stead, to teach the present generation the principles of co- 

 operation or organised self-help. Much beyond this might have 

 to be done before the Irish farmer could beat his Continental rival, 

 but this had to be done first. It was reserved for Sir Horace 

 Plunkett to do it. A member of an old Irish family, he was a 

 man of independent means. He had been ranching in the Far 

 West, and tlie aristocratic tendencies of the old home were inter- 

 woven with the democratic spirit of the Western Republic. It 

 was while a ranchman in Wyoming and Montana that Sir Horace 



