86 THE AGRICULTURAL CLUB. 



co-operative community working out its own salvation for 

 itself, but there are many millions of people in England who 

 do, and unless they see very great changes taking place in the 

 organisation of Agriculture very soon these numbers will steadily 

 increase. 



But you may say, " Why all this bother ? There is not enough 

 in agricultural co-operation to make much difference in calculat- 

 ing guaranteed prices." It may, in fact, be argued that the 

 factors of climate, weather and soil count 90 per cent, or more 

 in the price of agricultural produce, the difference between good 

 organisation and bad only 10 per cent., or less. I do not know 

 how this may be. That and many other things in the economics 

 of Agriculture badly want working out. I only know that when 

 agricultural co-operation was started in Ireland fertilisers came 

 down 50 per cent. When the Irish Agricultural Wholesale 

 Society took to providing dairying machinery, prices dropped 

 20 per cent. And we have, fresh in our minds, the figures that 

 Mr. Guy gave us of the avoidable elements in costs of agricultural 

 implements. 1 But it is the principle of the thing more than 

 the amount that matters. If the whole organisation of the 

 business is such as will give the consumer the best possible 

 article at the lowest price he may fairly be asked to see that his 

 food is produced on a basis which will first give the worker a 

 living wage and a bit over for civilisation, then the farmer a 

 reasonable margin of profit, and then the landowner a fair business 

 return on the actual value of the work he does and of the equip- 

 ment of the farm for which he has been responsible. The actual 

 amount which the community saves by paying a price on a 

 real business basis is a secondary matter. 



There is one last point in regard to guaranteed prices that 

 farmers should have in mind when they put forward their case. 

 Guaranteeing a minimum price must carry with it the claim 

 by the community to take produce at a maximum not neces- 

 sarily the same, but probably not very much higher. What world 

 prices will be after the war we cannot tell. But if the State agrees 

 to make farming remunerative, however low world prices may 

 be, they will certainly expect the farmers to sell without any 

 excessive remuneration if world prices are high. Remember 

 that during the war the State has learnt to be a wholesaler on 

 a gigantic scale, and in some ways not at all a bad one. 



I can see that some of my friends among the farmers, if by 

 this time I have any left, are looking pessimistic. I can imagine 

 them saying, " It's a gloomy outlook. We are to cultivate 

 as if nothing depended on organisation. We are to organise 

 as if nothing depended on cultivation. So perad venture we 



1 See Chapter VI. 



