214 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



labour, under their own " vine and fig tree." That aim 

 has been temporarily lost sight of over the more ambitious 

 political and socialist aims taken up. But it is on the 

 programme still. It cannot be erased. When the Small 

 Holdings Act of 1908 was passed, the United Board of the 

 Co-operative Union, realising the importance of the question 

 and the favourableness of the opportunity offering, issued 

 appeals to societies to take up the cause of Small Holdings 

 and form special organisations for securing them. To that 

 appeal, so the late Mr. J. C. Gray, at that time General 

 Secretary of the Union, advised me, only a very dis- 

 appointing response was made. Quite naturally so. On 

 co-operative ground Industry and Agriculture still stand 

 too far apart from one another for the one to be able fully 

 to understand the other. It is not so very long ago that 

 industrial co-operators owned that they had no faith in 

 the Agricultural Organisation Society, Why not ? With 

 the one exception of my humble self, so it was pointed out 

 to me, all the members of the Committee were pronounced 

 Conservative politicians. Now Co-operation can have no- 

 thing to do with party politics. In the province of Agri- 

 culture unfortunately in this country still things have a 

 natural tendency, not yet overcome, to become " besquired." 

 However, Co-operation is a democratic movement, which 

 does not want to be " befathered " or " bemastered." 

 Union with Industrial Co-operation can keep us clear of 

 that ; it can instil a spirit of real Co-operation, which scorns 

 favours, and makes its way by sturdy resolution and un- 

 bending self-reliance. And it can infuse enthusiasm for 

 the cause of " Repeopling the Land " with willing, self- 

 reliant, pushing cultivators, such as we want to see upon 

 the land. 



In this matter Italian Co-operators have quite recently 

 set us an admirable example. The various forms of Co- 

 operation there have all along maintained a very close and 

 friendly touch among themselves. Their Agriculture is 

 not either " bejunkered " or " besquired." Accordingly it 

 was in a position readily to hold out the right hand of 

 brotherhood both to the distributive and productive and 



