CO-OPERATIVE SETTLEMENT 



the management largely in the settlers themselves. They 

 were to be accompanied by a government official, but his 

 power was that of moral influence rather than of legal 

 authority. Under this plan several settlements were 

 started, and for a time seemed to promise excellent re- 

 sults. But the most recent information the writer has 

 been able to obtain is to the effect that the colonies 

 went to pieces upon the rock of internal dissension, as 

 has so often been the case in the absence of strong, re- 

 sponsible leadership. 



The experience of the Chaffey Brothers, of California, 

 who went to Australia to found colonies at the request 

 of the government, was quite similar. As long as the 

 people worked upon plans the projectors had learned 

 from their valuable experience in California, and accept- 

 ed direction, they prospered. When the people took 

 full control for themselves, dissension and demoraliza- 

 tion quickly ensued, to be followed by disappointment, 

 and at least partial defeat. 



Wherever the conditions of settlement were such as 

 to call for organized industry and society, ail experience 

 teaches the absolute need of superior brains and charac- 

 ter at the head of affairs. This is not strikingly true of 

 the settlement of the vast country between the Alleghany 

 and the Rocky Mountains during the past one hundred 

 years. In that case both the locality and the times 

 favored individual effort. But the waste-places which 

 remain to be conquered, not only in the United States, 

 but in nearly all other parts of the world, present con- 

 ditions which demand the association and organization 

 of both labor and capital. Even if physical conditions 

 did not make this demand, existing economic facts would 

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