ORGANISATION. 213 



much to give to Agricultural Co-operation, in a per- 

 fectly legitimate way, without pretending to any right of 

 dictation, without setting up any claim to interference. 

 Above all things, it has a knowledge of co-operative prin- 

 ciples and practice to impart, which is the first thing that 

 our would-be agricultural co-operators stand in need of, and 

 which Whitehall Place cannot give. But our Co-operative 

 Union can give very much more. Next to sound co-operative 

 principle, the great need of a starting agricultural co- 

 operative movement is a market. That our Co-operative 

 Union has ready for us — on a grand scale — and willing 

 to take our produce on fair terms. That market is 

 worth a good deal more than all the Government favour- 

 ing by State purchases that we see practised abroad. 

 Beyond this, the industrial Co-operative Movement has 

 a most successful Wholesale Organisation ready to hand, 

 such an organisation as we have been groping for — at 

 first, at any rate, it must be admitted, with anything but 

 success, on most curiously erratic lines — an organisation 

 all ready made, with all the necessary machinery, all the 

 trade, all the agencies ready provided, doing already a 

 considerable agricultural business. Our proper policy 

 evidently would have been to join hands with that other 

 co-operative movement on an understanding of give and 

 take. The return which the industrial movement would 

 get would simply be an expansion, such as it desires, of its 

 movement — its distributive movement — into rural parts, 

 where it is very much wanted, and where we are at present 

 endeavouring to organise something of the same sort at 

 the risk of coming into direct conflict with our should-be 

 ally on the dangerous point of overlapping. The Nation 

 would stand to gain much more. For combination of the 

 two movements, which ought to be made to grow into 

 one, like the prophet Ezekiel's " two sticks," must of 

 necessity impart a powerful impetus, that should be wel- 

 come, to the Small Holdings movement. Small Holdings 

 are a thing which stands almost foremost on the early 

 co-operative programme — the country to be filled with 

 small cultivators, thriving with moderate and healthy 



