COOPERATION 



enormous volume of retail and wholesale trade. 

 In America, where greater freedom in many 

 ways prevails, where the men who are most 

 interested in such lines — as the farmers of the 

 New Earth, for example — are broader in their 

 outlook and better fitted by their freer hfe for 

 service, the possibilities are even greater than 

 in Great Britain. The extension of coopera- 

 tion beyond the cooperative dairying, which 

 has been so successful, lies wholly with the 

 farmers. There are obstacles, to be sure, but 

 they are wholly different from the obstacles 

 which have been in the way of the success of 

 other farmers' organizations, and far easier to 

 surmount. 



No doubt certain selfish interests will openly 

 or covertly attack any movement of this kind. 

 Concentrated capital in the hands of unfair 

 men will as quickly seek to destroy the life of 

 a cooperative creamery as to crush a danger- 

 ous rival railroad. Attempts may be made so 

 to combine corporate interests of various kinds 

 as either to push the cooperators to the wall, 

 so that they will be obliged to sell out at a 

 sacrifice to save themselves from ruin, or to 

 tempt them to abandon their position by the 



295 



