494 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



tors to Government influencing of Co-operation, such as our 

 people here cannot be brought quite to understand, even 

 those who have studied its organisation minutely. Distri- 

 butive Co-operation, in which we lead the world, was not in 

 Germany, or vegetated only in a languid way, until it occurred 

 to some enterprising Germans to visit our great Stores, and, 

 that done, to proclaim what they had seen, in their Report 

 " Unsere Englandreise." It was on the British model that 

 German Co-operation was moulded and grew up. 



Do not let us make ourselves out less capable than in 

 reality we are ! We have defects enough in all conscience to 

 answer for. Do not let us invent new ones ! What is want- 

 ing in our case is not the power to do the things wanted, but 

 the perception that they would be to our benefit and accord- 

 ingly the will. We have not looked at them nor thought them 

 over. Our farmers, even the backward ones, are perfectly 

 equal to accomplishing what the German hauers have done, 

 and the Danish husmdnd, the Dutch landhouwers, and the 

 French and Belgian cuUivateurs. But it has not yet dawned 

 upon therA that they will have to do it, just as in the 'eighties 

 the Germans did not detect the necessity, and the Belgians, 

 when M. Graux bitterly complained in the Chamber that his 

 rural countrymen would not combine and organise. 

 Belgians as well as Germans have learnt since then what 

 organisation, instruction, the judicious use of borrowed 

 money, the employment of new methods and perfected 

 implements, cow-testing, grading and proper packing of 

 produce, careful training of Labour, and a fair wage mean 

 to them. No doubt in due course our country-folk will 

 learn this too. However, time is pressing. The Nation is 

 clamouring for a rightful return from the " talent " entrusted 

 to the guardians of its agricultural interests. If the farmer 

 is content just to eke out a " living," the Nation, which 

 wants to be fed, is of a different mind. And, in the last 

 resort, the Nation will have the power to enforce its will. 

 There is no " prescription," so says Mr. Prothcro, against the 

 Nation. 



Whatever be the objections raised by one-sided private 

 or class interests, we may be sure that the will of the Nation, 



