266 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



better — not anything like as good. They provide money — 

 which, being easily got, is apt to be injudiciously and 

 unprofitably employed. Raiffeisen's principle was to make 

 borrowing difficult, in order under the circumstances, 

 such as they are, to make it possible. However these 

 institutions leave " the man " untouched. They do not fit 

 him the better to stand by himself, to be a better citizen 

 or a more inquiring student of things affecting him. 



We have not, fortunately, the same inducements that 

 people have abroad to put Co-operative Organisations into 

 Government harness, to dress them up either in Prussian blue, 

 or else in Republican tricolour. For we have not, like the 

 Germans, a Government distinct from the people, and 

 partially in opposition to it. And we have no reason to 

 dread a Royalist movement, like the Republicans of France. 

 Indeed, we rightly do not trouble about the political com- 

 plexion of any economic movement. In India, we should 

 welcome Swadeshi co-operative societies. We have diffi- 

 culties to contend with in Ireland. But what opposes us 

 there is not a Government self-seeking on its own account, 

 but decidedly self-seeking gombeen men, basking for a while 

 in official sunshine. That difficulty is likely to be got over. 



Having the choice open to us between two systems, I 

 do not think we can be doubtful, upon knowing the facts 

 and upon due consideration, in favour of which to decide. 

 We have, on the one hand, rapid extension, possibly a bril- 

 liant early show to look forward to. However, the timber 

 so produced is not the tough, weathered British oak which 

 only gets the more firmly rooted with the " loud blast that 

 rends the sky " — such as must sooner or later come to any 

 financial institution — but oak of the American type, which 

 shoots up like a poplar, but the wood of which has as little 

 strength. On the other hand, we have an institution which 

 grows slowly, it may be, but produces what will stand by 

 itself, an institution devoted to that " man-making " which, 

 in Mr. Gladstone's words, Providence has impressed as an 

 aim upon Creation and so made it our duty to pursue. 

 Its gold, even though it should come tardily, is not " rainbow 

 gold," but the real metal which will last, \Ye have good 



