MANAWATU EVENING STANDARD POHANGINA GAZETTE. Circulation, 3,000 Copies Daily TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1904. THE VALUE OF CO-OPERATION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XL, Issue 7923, 4 October 1904, Page 4

MANAWATU EVENING STANDARD POHANGINA GAZETTE. Circulation, 3,000 Copies Daily TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1904. THE VALUE OF CO-OPERATION.

Although New Zealand farmers, by combination, have done much to improve their position of kte yeai-s, it is an admitted fact that even in business matters far greater benefits would be obtainable if they brought co-operation more generally into vogue among themselves. The various trades, with few exceptions, have • their unions, and employers have been forced into combination for the protection of their own interests, but farmers, on the other hand, do not co-operate to the extent they could and should for mutual benefit; The way in which the co-operative spirit may be developed from small beginnings has been illustrated by Mr Edwin. A. Pratt in his book on "The Organisation of Agriculture," through a reference to the wonderful growth of the agricultural societies of. Belgium. A few years, ago the Abbe Mellaerts, an ecclesiastic with practical humanitarian ideas, happened to be speaking to a farmer, who complained that, his wheat crop had proved a disappointment. The priest had made a study of the value of fertilisers on a very small scale, and he' gave the man a sackful of good chemical manure. The stuff was tried on a small crop of potatoes, with such success that before next season the whole country side had heard of it, and many others were induced to try the improved system. For the purpose of enabling the farmers to buy then- manures wholesale at a favorable price the Abbe then started what he called the Peasant Guild. The movement spread. In a few years agricultural societies had sprung up by hundreds, and conducted business co-operatively, not only in the purchase of manures, but also in the insuring of live stock, and even the grouping of fire insurances, in order to obtam more favorable terms from the companies. At the present date, according to the figures given by Mr H. W. Woolf in a recent number of the Economic Eeview, there are more than 1000 agricultural banks in Italy, which are practically farmers' unions.

But the most wonderful development of the agricultural bank system is to be seen in Austria-Hun-gary and in Germany. In what is now known as the Baiffeisen system of banking, the rural customers of the bank are also its shareholders, practically to the exclusion of everyone' else. No city financier is ever permitted to have his finger in the pie. The farmers cooperate to lend one another sums of money, and to buy wholesale on the most advantageous. terms. They take good care that no one is allowed to borrow unless he is personally and favourably known to several of the active shareholders. The spirit of self-help, having been strengthened on the financial side, soon began to permeate nearly all the other sides of practical

rural life. .If any- co-operative scheme has a sound basis-of-, -common sense ■to recommend it there is no lack of cooperative capital to,back it up':- Noth-' ing was more surprising to an/English electrician travelling on the .Continent than to find that a number of farmers in the Bavarian highlands had combined to bring electrically generated power from a waterfall on the mountain side to then- farms, where'- it \ was utilised for a- score of different 'purposes, economising; labour .hi every, direction - In other ways the.practical wisdom and technical skill exhibited in' sprne of the co-operative; schemes set oh foot by. German and Austrian farmers have excited the wonder of every.visitor.' ' The kind of purposeful initiative thai. was.-for-merly, taken by a few exceptionally-in-telligent and ;.wealthy landlords, .primarily for their own benefit, is how adopted by the shareholders in the agricultural bank. The German farmers, in a review of their recent business history, have'indeed cause-to adopt' the favorite motto of unionism—"United we stand; divided we fall."

In Prance, just as hi Belgium, the rise of agricultural co-operation was due to the need for buying manures wholesale. Frorn^ this considerable department of trade the Soeietes dcs Agriculteurs went on to make unifcd purchases of implements and other farm requitements, and a very large trade is now conducted by the associations. In the United Kingdom the only place where co-operation has really taken hold of the producer is Ireland. Many of the small farmers who at one time regularly attended the meetings of their branches of the Land League are now members of agricultural societies which conduct their trade on the co-operative principle. The opposition to landlordism seems, in this instance, to have proved to be the initial cementing force which bound together the farmers in a sufficiently strong community of interest to render mutual help in other directions possible. In most agricultural countries each farming I homestead naturally tends to assume a more or less isolated existence, having an exterior which is slightly repellent towards all outsiders—like the film on the outside of the globule of fat hi milk. It requires a process of churning to knock the globules together so as to form butter, and it seems to be necessary that similar outside pressure should exist hi order to ensure beneficial co-operation among

farmers,