192 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



operative insurance is well established on the European 

 Continent. However, the country in which — it is true, in 

 a capitalist " co-operative " way — it has become by far 

 the most extended is the United States, which set us a 

 most stimulating example. On the European Continent 

 Governments and provincial administrations have to a 

 great extent forestalled Co-operation by prescribing com- 

 pulsory insurance directed by themselves. In the United 

 States co-operative insurance has become a great power. 

 In the Middle West it all but monopolises insurance business. 

 In this country the Agricultural Organisation Society has 

 adopted a ver}^ useful scheme of Co-operative Insurance, 

 which, it is satisfactory to see, is now gaining fresh adherents 

 every year. Whether it might not have been quite as well 

 for the Society to join for insurance purposes the Co-opera- 

 tive Insurance Society must remain an open question. 

 The Co-operative Insurance Society has worked well and 

 satisfactorily, and its Collective Life Insurance scheme 

 is a veritable boon to small folk. It is, however, only 

 applicable where there is a considerable distributive busi- 

 ness. The Cow and Pig Insurance schemes devised by 

 our Board of Agriculture are likewise good. On this ground 

 the country has a good deal of leeway to make up. And 

 one may well hope that the wave of co-operative enthusiasm 

 which we are now looking for may carry provident insurance 

 of live stock — the small holder's most precious possession, 

 but a possession exposed to great risk — far and wide into 

 small farmsteads. Once more, for detailed discussion of the 

 subject, I must refer to " Co-operation in Agriculture." 



The useful services which it has in its power to render 

 in the matter of land settlement have already been alluded 

 to. Collective settlements for collective cultivation are 

 now in one sense a thing of the past, and in another a 

 communist fad waiting for its true fulfilment in the dim 

 and distant future. But Co-operation in the securing of 

 land wholesale, be it by hiring or be it by purchase, accord- 

 ingly at wholesale prices, in order to retail it once more, 

 either by sale or by letting — at cost price only to members 

 of the co-operating host — is an operation full of practical 



