40 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



alpage — could not do without them and has reHgiously 

 preserved this heirloom of Teuton descent, together with 

 other valued bequests from Burgundian and Allemannian 

 ancestors, the preservation of which so greatly delighted 

 Freeman ! Our enclosure of commons of course gave the 

 finishing blow to small husbandry of the old form among 

 ourselves and saddled us with the task which is now so 

 exactingly taxing our wits, of creating in a new form what 

 we ought never to have destroyed in the old. Germany 

 went on the opposite tack. She continued favouring small 

 property — by various Auseinandersetzungen (separation of 

 dual rights) and eventually by the promotion of Renien- 

 guter, that is, amall holdings created with the assistance 

 (not in money, but in land bonds) of the State, in a form 

 which ensures enduring separation. For the results once 

 more I would refer to Mr. Middleton's Report, unless people 

 will pay me the compliment of reading an article by me 

 entitled, "A Practical Justification of Peasant Properties," 

 which appeared in the May number of the Contemporary 

 Review of 1891. 



The great assistance which German natural inclination 

 to Co-operation has rendered the cause of National Agri- 

 culture has already been spoken of. As a point of detail 

 that may indeed be looked upon as the most potent factor 

 which has helped backward Agriculture forward to its 

 present pride of place — more specifically in the case of 

 Co-operative Organisation for the obtainment of money. 

 For without money — much money, too — there was nothing 

 to be accomplished. Indeed, all Co-operative Organisa- 

 tion remained in abeyance until Co-operation for Credit 

 had been organised. You cannot make bread without 

 flour. What huge, what enormous sums of money Co- 

 operation has furnished to the German farmer, large and 

 small — and thereby to the Nation — it would be difficult 

 to make British farmers understand. The amount is so 

 prodigious. When, twenty- three years ago, I put the figure 

 for that time in a prospectus for our Agricultural Banks 

 Association at about two hundred million sterling, the 

 Committee behind my back reduced that figure by half 



