CONCLUSION. 479 



himself, that that will likewise be the best economy for the 

 small man in the country. The wealthy man has other 

 occupations to bring him in his income. The small man 

 in the country has not. He raises what he wants by his 

 own labour, which is his goods, just as the industrial working 

 man provides himself, by collective production of his own, 

 through his co-operative society. He buys with his labour. 

 How^e\'er, among the arguments used in favour of small 

 holdings those bearing on the social side are by far the 

 weightiest. And that brings us back to the point of Organi- 

 sation, which is absolutely essential for the maintenance 

 of small holdings. The small holder, as we are thinking 

 of him — even if there is a Prothero to provide a holding 

 for him, in the place of a County Council, as at Maulden — 

 cannot possibl}^ stand alone. He needs touch with neigh- 

 bours for economic purposes. He cannot buy his agricul- 

 tural requirements of the necessary cheapness and of the 

 necessary quality by himself. It has been shown that he 

 has been benefited even in the obtainment of his small 

 holding by co-operation with others : how societies have 

 been formed to buy or rent the land for him at wholesale 

 prices. We have instances of this, as an arrangement 

 working satisfactority, in our ow'n country. There are 

 more, and more telling instances to be met with abroad. 

 But once settled, our man wants help which needs to be 

 mutual, consisting of giving and taking. Whether it please 

 Sir Thomas Russell or no, he wants his store, to provide 

 him with cheap and good necessaries of life. Stores ought 

 to cover the face of the country as they do the space of 

 industrial centres. We see the benefit of this in Denmark, 

 and above all countries in Eastern Switzerland. There 

 ought to be stores, for the benefit of the agricultural labourer 

 at any rate, even where there are no small holdings. But 

 where there are small holdings, there ought to be stores, 

 not merely because they provide cheap goods, giving the 

 consumer the value of the profit which now goes to the 

 middleman. Distributive Co-operation is the easiest form 

 of Co-operation to learn, and a form which, humanly speak- 

 ing, is bound to succeed in almost all cases, yielding an 



