South Canterbury Times, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2345, 22 September 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1880.

The committee of the Timaru Farmers’ Co-operative Association have, we think, taken a wise course in resolving to have lectures delivered in various parts of the district. Fanners, as a rule, are steady, plodding individuals, who believe more in their own independent exertions than in the attractive schemes of sympathetic advisers. Hence it arises that movements of a public or general character, however ably designed, usually fail to make a very decided impression on the agricultural mind, unless they happen to be supported by persistent argument. The co-operative movement in this district has been taken in hand by gentlemen who are evidently not only in earnest in the task they have undertaken, but who have an accurate conception of the difficulties which they must be prepared to encounter, and the kind of effort that is necessary to overcome them. To have contented themselves with an occasional meeting in Timaru of a market day would simply have been to have courted failure. Cooperative movements, in their infancy must depend on constant agitation for their sustenance and growth. While the germ is taking root the soil must be moistened. The promoters of this agricultural union have resolved not to be content with merely inviting the farmers of the district to attend their periodical gatherings, in the hope that eventually such efforts will bring fruit. They have decided to go to the farmers, and by persistent agitation and sound argument, to convince them of the benefits derivable from co-operation. In the course of a few weeks lectures are to be delivered under the auspices of the Association in every centre of consequence in South Canterbury. These lectures wc believe and hope, will fall like a good seed on a fruitful soil, Thc3 r will probably set the dormant minds thinking, and if they can only arouse sufficient interest and stimulate enquiry,the battle of the promoters of farming cooperation, in this part of New Zealand will have been fought and won. If there is one thing more than another that entitles the association to kindly recognition, it is the honest and philanthropic motives of the originators. The gentlemen who have associated themselves with this laudable causc,are well-known farmers themselves. In the efforts which they are making they are animated by no desire to enrich themselves at the expense of others, but by a commendable wish to do good to themselves and their neighbors. To improve generally the agricultural interest—to raise the average farmer from a condition of depence to one of independence—is the excellent object upon which the}' are engaged. Nor arc their aims Utopian. England, America, France and Belgium have all demonstrated the value of cooperative effort in connection with agriculture. Co-operative societies or associations have done more for the farmers of these countries than all the bone dust, guano, and chemical manures in the universe. It has added to the productiveness of their Holds, the prolits of their crops, and the comforts of their homes. It lias brought distant markets to their doors, and raised them from a condition of poverty to one of comparative opulence. With all that has been said about the late glorious harvest, farming in New Zealand is at a low ebb. Our farmers have had excellent crops,hut glutted markets and high freights have run away with the profits. It is to cure this unwholesome state of affairs that co-opera-tive effort is invited. We have no doubt that the lectures about to be delivered throughout the district will be found instructive and interesting. The promoters of the association in their labor of love will have no difficulty in placing a most inviting spread before their audiences. It will then be for the farmers of the district, having heard what co-operation has done and is doing for the agricultural interest in remote parts of the world, to say whether the principle is to have a fair trial in New Zealand.