46 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



that persuasive " bullock," as Demosthenes called it- 

 being at that time a Macedonian piece of money bearing 

 the image of a bullock, and freely bestowed upon " paci- 

 fist " Greeks as a convincing argument in favour of sub- 

 mission—and plenty of blandishments and preferences, 

 rural Germany was brought into a condition to support 

 " patriotically " the Emperor's warlike designs, and to 

 cheer the smashing of Sir E. Goschen's windows and the 

 studied ill-treatment of British wounded and prisoners. 

 It was Bernhardied and Treitschked all over. 



The Emperor and his Government have therefore abused 

 the names of Co-operation and of Agriculture, as they have 

 abused the names and forms of other things under their 

 control — justice, and not least so the nondescript Luthero- 

 Calvinist, supererastian State-made Church of their country, 

 whose ministers read a chapter out of Holy Writ and make 

 the sign of the Cross, and then solemnly tell their congre- 

 gations from out of the pulpit that their supreme duty is 

 in all things to obey the " Kaiser " and do his will.^ 



All this Government befriending hocus-pocus after 1894 

 was a purely political move. In acting on Mr. Middleton's 

 timely invitation to " learn from Germany," there is, 

 indeed, not a little to be learnt, but Mr. Middleton is fully 

 justified in making his reserves. We shall accordingly 

 have to be careful to distinguish between what was done 

 genuinely for Agriculture and what was done for the Kaiser's 

 autocracy under the mask of Agriculture, 



There are other grounds upon which, though certainly 

 we should do wrong not to take German example to heart, 

 we shall have to be careful to accept German example in 



supposed unique prosperity and power, were plotting mischief 

 against an innocent and peaceable victim. Herr Haas and his great 

 junker Union, though professedly co-operative, but really to a much 

 greater extent political, had advisedly declined to become members 

 of the " International Co-operative Alliance " — which the German 

 won- junker Unions had readily joined — on the ground, frankly 

 owned to on a public occasion at Vienna, that the Executive Committee 

 of the Alliance was (for reasons of practical convenience, the seat of 

 the Alliance being in London) for the time composed of " English- 

 men." 



* I have heard this done. 



