

THE BEGINNING OF THE U.F.O. 43 



other societies had done, but also along broad 

 lines of citizenship, the study of public questions, 

 and the giving to the rural people a means of 

 making their opinions felt in these matters, and 

 the United Farmers' Co-Operative Company, 

 designed to aid the farmer in his business of 

 buying and selling. 



The reader may wonder why this dual 

 organization was necessary, why it was neces- 

 sary that the United Farmers' Association and 

 the Company, closely allied as they were and are, 

 should have been two separate and distinct 

 organizations. The answer to this question is, 

 that although these two serve practically the 

 same people,, their aims and methods are so 

 different and indeed divergent, that if it were 

 attempted to combine them, nothing could be 

 effected but mutual hindrance. The United 

 Farmers of Ontario has for its sole aim the rais- 

 ing of the rural people to a higher plane of citizen- 

 ship. Recognizing the importance of the farmer 

 in the life of the nation, it aims to give him a 

 knowledge of public questions, and an influence 

 on national life commensurate with his import- 

 ance. Such an organization, educational in its 

 nature and sometimes, of necessity, becoming a 

 propagandist for those things in which it believes, 

 is obviously unfitted for the work of buying and 

 selling. On the other hand the Company is a 



