chairman's address* feOl 



What hdndldapped us and tliem mo3t severely in comparison with siillilar bodies 

 engaged upon similar work in other countries was the lack of business organisation 

 among farmers. I have no hesitation in laying it down as a fundamental prin- 

 ciple of agricultural development that organisation for business purposes is an 

 essential condition of a demand for technical advice, and of a willingness and 

 capacity to apply it, This brings me to what is, perhaps, the most important of 

 all agencies in rural progress. I refer to agricultural co-operation. 



It is in regard to the organisation of industry that the modern city has made 

 its greatest advance as compared with the country. It should be remembered 

 that the problem of rural life is a product of the industrial revolution which 

 deprived the open country of all its economic activities, except the production of 

 food for the ^sustenance of the urban population, and of raw material for its manu- 

 factures. This inevitably had a narrowing and depressing efiect upon rural society. 

 I know farming communities in the most fertile portions of the United States 

 where it is the settled practice of the up-to-date paterfamilias to send his hopefuls 

 to the city and keep the fool on the farm. In the economic changes consequent 

 upon the industrial revolution the organisation of the commerce and industry of 

 the towns proceeded apace. The circumstances of farm life did not lend them- 

 selves to any similar process. At the same time, the increased demand for 

 agricultural produce in bulk of uniform quality urgently called for the organisation 

 of farmers if they were to compete in the world-market. To supply such a need 

 the co-operative system has been adopted by European farmers wherever education 

 is so related to the life of a people that economic thought is developed. In these 

 islands the work of organising farmers, of giving the country a co-operative system 

 which is the counterpart of the joint-stock system of the towns, has to be left to 

 agricultural organisation societies constituted for the special purpose of inducing 

 farmers to do here what elsewhere they do spontaneous!}'. 



Now the point I wish to emphasise is that agricultural co-operation has a far 

 higher aim, purpose, and justification than is to be found in the immediate and 

 obvious business advantage of joint action in the purchase of requirements, sa'e of 

 produce, mutual credit and insurance, and the well-known forms of combination 

 for productive purposes. If the economists would realise that those who are 

 organising farmers with the primary purpose of giving them some chance of 

 placing rural life upon a permanent basis of comfort are in reality making for a 

 much larger end, they would devote a little more attention to those who are 

 engaged in this work, and who are in a position to give practical effect to any 

 addition that they may make to the available supply of economic thought. 



(3) Social and Educational Sciince in Rural Life. 



I take now the third part of the threefold division of the social service under 

 review, better living. There cc-operation is as necessary as it is in the diffusion 

 of technical knowledge. People who are brought together for mutual advanta"-e 

 in the business of their lives are easily induced to apply their organisation for 

 purposes of mutual social and intellectual improvement. The complete recon- 

 struction of the social life of rural communities is as urgent as the reor^i-anisation 

 of their business. 



Before leaving agricultural co-operation, its primary purpose and incidental 

 effects, I would like to say a word upon its bearing on the small holdings question. 

 Everybody admits that agricultural co-operation is beneficial in inverse proportion 

 to the economic standing of the farmer, and that the isolated small liolder will 

 have a very doubtful prospect to face. Yet neither in Great Britain, where small 

 holdings are being multiplied, nor in Ireland, where the people are on the land, 

 but where vast numbers of them have to be resettled on new holdings, has nearly 

 sufficient thought been given to this aspect of the question. It is a matter of 

 immense importance to consider whether the family should be the unit in our 

 schemes for reconstituting our rural social economy, or whether it would not be 

 sounder to treat communities as units ; otherwise, no matter how we preach 

 co-operation, it may not be practised, I cannot, of course, pursue the subiect 

 further, but I suggest to the economists that they would find here a rich field 

 1908. 3 p 



