The Wairarapa Daily. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1882. CO-OPERATIVE AGRICULTURE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 4, Issue 1197, 6 October 1882, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1882. CO-OPERATIVE AGRICULTURE.

Oun contemporary the Hawta Bay Herald lias drawn attention to a new co-oporativo movement in agriculture, described in a recent number of tho Contemporary Roview, New fads of all kinds are continually rising and setting in the pages of London periodicals, bu.t as a rule they are of littlo use to the toilers in the Southern Seas who prefer their own rule of thumb to the clever devices of the scientists of Europe. The present instance of cooperative agriculture is a case in point. It is admirably adapted 'for the poverty stricken laborers of the old world, but it is scarcely good enough for the free and independent workers in a colony like New Zealand.. We refer to it merely to show' that a scheme wjiicli is virtually a great lift to an English .cottager would be a decided fall for & colonel laborer. The co operative agriculture alluded to is a sj stem which has been tried in various forms in Germany, by which laborers are given a direct interest in the farms they cultivate. They'draw ordinary wages but to encourage them to greater exertions they are allotted above and beyond this a:small percentage of the farm profits. The primary end and object of this inducement has been to enable them .to make a provision for their old age,—to keep them from the poor house. 1 It is sad to reflect that the triumph of an English or j German workman is merely the escaping in his old age a dependence upon charitable aid. Wealth or oven a moderate competence is beyond his range, but with the aid of'an ingenious co-operative system he is enabled after 'forty or fifty years of toil to die in his;own bed and under his own rooftree. We .learn that the experiments in this species of co-operative agrisulpure have extended over three generations, and that they have been absolutely a success in bringing the labdrers engaged in them to a higher level, Any movement which tends to raise in the scale of existence the peasant of the old world conduces indirectly to 1 our own prosperity. It is from this peasant class that the labor market of this colony will be mainly recruited, and if a fow thousands of $e home workers bettered: themselves wis? such a' system they l would soon be seeking to j take another step in advance, vi?., to ! become freeholders, and'ttfdo this they would seek out new countries like New Zealand. From this point of view the amelioration of the working, classes in Europe is likely j to 'prove beneficial to the dwellers in the free" colonies of Great Britain,