io 4 AGRICULTURAL ORGANISATION 



Society — otherwise the " A. O. S." — was constituted as a 

 non-party and non-trading body, whose main purpose was 

 to " secure the co-operation of all connected with the land, 

 whether as owners, occupiers or labourers, and to promote 

 the formation of agricultural co-operative societies for the 

 purchase of requisites, for the sale of produce, for agricul- 

 tural credit banking and insurance, and for all other forms 

 of co-operation for the benefit of agriculture." The Society 

 adopted, in fact, on its own account, the principle which 

 had been enunciated by Sir Horace Plunkett at the in- 

 auguration of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, 

 in 1894, when he said : — " The keynote of our proposals is 

 in the proposition that the farmers must work out their 

 own salvation, and, further, that this can only be done by 

 combination among themselves." 



While, however, public opinion was, by this time, fully 

 prepared to endorse the soundness of the argument, it greatly 

 doubted the possibility of carrying the proposals into effect. 

 It sympathised with the idea of combination among British 

 farmers, but assumed, from the recent experiences, that 

 those who made further attempts to attain the realisation 

 of that idea would simply be following up a forlorn hope. 



There did, also, appear to be a certain amount of pre- 

 sumption on the part of the new Society. 



The National Agricultural Conference of December, 1892, 

 had brought together the greatest authorities in the British 

 agricultural world, and these had proposed their remedies 

 and blessed the formation of a National Agricultural Union ; 

 but the remedies were found to be of no avail and the 

 National Union came to nought. 



Lord Winchilsea had organised his British Produce Supply 

 Association with a capital of £50,000, had secured the support 

 of leading members of London Society, had started opera- 

 tions on an ambitious scale, and had then — failed. 



The railway companies, with all their powerful resources, 

 had in turn sought to promote combination among the 

 farmers, and they, too, had — failed. 



Notwithstanding these failures, an unpretending little 



