CHAPTER VI.

THROUGH THOUGHT TO ACTION.

I have now completed my survey of the main conditions which, in my

opinion, must be taken into account by anyone who would understand the

Irish mind, and still more by those who seek to work with it in

rebuilding the fortunes of the country. The task has been one of great

difficulty, as it was necessary to tell, not only the truth--for that

even an official person may be excused--but also the whole truth, which,

unless made compulsory by the kissing of the book, is regarded as a

gratuitous kissing of the rod. From the frying pan of political dispute,

I have passed into the fire of sectarian controversy. I have not

hesitated to poach on the preserves of historians and economists, and

have even bearded the pedagogues in their dens. Before my stock of

metaphors is exhausted, let me say that I have one hope of escape from

the cross-fire of denunciation which independent speaking about Ireland

is apt to provoke. I once witnessed a football match between two

villages, one of which favoured a political party called by the name of

a leader, with an 'ism' added to indicate a policy, the other adopting

the same name, still further elongated by the prefix 'anti.' When I

arrived on the scene the game had begun in deadly earnest, but I noticed

the ball lying unmolested in another quarter of the field. In Irish

public life I have often had reason to envy that ball, and perhaps now

its lot may be mine, while the game goes on and the critics pay

attention to each other.

To my friendly critics a word of explanation is due. The opinions to

which I have given expression are based upon personal observation and

experience extending over a quarter of a century during which I have

been in close touch with Irish life at home, and not unfamiliar with it

abroad. I have referred to history only when I could not otherwise

account for social and economic conditions with which I came into

contact, or with which I desired practically to deal. Whether looking

back over the dreary wastes of Anglo-Irish history, or studying the men

and things of to-day, I came to conclusions which differed widely from

what I had been taught to believe by those whose theories of Irish

development had not been subjected to any practical test. Deeply as I

have felt for the past sufferings of the Irish people and their heritage

of disability and distress, I could not bring myself to believe that,

where misgovernment had continued so long, and in such an immense

variety of circumstances and conditions, the governors could have been

alone to blame. I envied those leaders of popular thought whose

confidence in themselves and in their followers was shaken by no such

reflections. But the more I listened to them the more the conviction was

borne in upon me that they were seeking to build an impossible future

upon an imaginary past.

Those who know Ireland from within are aware that Irish thought upon

Irish problems has been undergoing a silent, and therefore too lightly

regarded revolution. The surface of Irish life, often so inexplicably

ruffled, and sometimes so inexplicably calm, has just now become smooth

to a degree which has led to hasty conclusions as to the real cause and

the inward significance of the change. To chime in with the thoughtless

optimism of the hour will do no good; but a real understanding of the

forces which have created the existing situation will reveal an

unprecedented opportunity for those who would give to the Irish mind

that full and free development which has been so long and, as I have

tried to show, so unnaturally delayed.

Among these new forces in Irish life there is one which has been greatly

misunderstood; and yet to its influence during the last few years much

of the 'transformation scene' in the drama of the Irish Question is

really due. It deserves more than a passing notice here, because, while

its aims as formulated appear somewhat restricted, it unquestionably

tends in practice towards that national object of paramount importance,

the strengthening of character. I refer to the movement known as the

Gaelic Revival. Of this movement I am myself but an outside observer,

having been forced to devote nearly all my time and energies to a

variety of attempts which aim at the doing in the industrial sphere of

very much the same work as that which the Gaelic movement attempts in

the intellectual sphere--the rehabilitation of Ireland from within. But

in the course of my work of agricultural and industrial development I

naturally came across this new intellectual force and found that when it

began to take effect, so far from diverting the minds of the peasantry

from the practical affairs of life, it made them distinctly more

amenable to the teaching of the dry economic doctrine of which I was an

apostle. The reason for this is plain enough to me now, though, like all

my theories about Ireland, the truth came to me from observation and

practical experience rather than as the result of philosophic

speculation. For the co-operative movement depended for its success upon

a two-fold achievement. In order to get it started at all, its

principles and working details had to be grasped by the Irish peasant

mind and commended to his intelligence. Its further development and its

hopes of permanence depend upon the strengthening of character, which, I

must repeat, is the foundation of all Irish progress.

The Irish Agricultural Organisation Society[28] exerts its influence--a

now established and rapidly-growing influence--mainly through the medium

of associations. The Gaelic movement, on the other hand, acts more

directly upon the individual, and the two forces are therefore in a

sense complementary to each other. Both will be seen to be playing an

important part--I should say a necessary part--in the reconstruction of

our national life. At any rate, I feel that it is necessary to my

argument that I should explain to those who are as ill-informed about

the Gaelic revival as I was myself until its practical usefulness was

demonstrated to me, what exactly seems to be the most important outcome

of the work of that movement.

The Gaelic League, which defines its objects as 'The preservation of

Irish as the national language of Ireland and the extension of its use

as a spoken tongue; the study and publication of existing Irish

literature and the cultivation of a modern literature in Irish,' was

formed in 1893. Like the Agricultural Organisation Society, the Gaelic

League is declared by its constitution to be 'strictly non-political and

non-sectarian,' and, like it, has been the object of much suspicion,

because severance from politics in Ireland has always seemed to the

politician the most active form of enmity. Its constitution, too, is

somewhat similar, being democratically guided in its policy by the

elected representatives of its affiliated branches. It is interesting to

note that the funds with which it carries on an extensive propaganda are

mainly supplied from the small contributions of the poor. It publishes

two periodicals, one weekly and another monthly. It administers an

income of some £6,000 a year, not reckoning what is spent by local

branches, and has a paid staff of eleven officers, a secretary,

treasurer, and nine organisers, together with a large number of

voluntary workers. It resembled the agricultural movement also in the

fact that it made very little headway during the first few years of its

existence. But it had a nucleus of workers with new ideas for the

intellectual regeneration of Ireland. In face of much apathy they

persisted with their propaganda, and they have at last succeeded in

making their ideas understood. So much is evident from the

rapidly-increasing number of affiliated branches of the League, which in

March, 1903, amounted to 600, almost treble the number registered two

years before. But even this does not convey any idea of the influence

which the movement exerts. Within the past year the teaching of the

Irish language has been introduced into no less than 1,300 National

Schools. In 1900 the number of schools in which Irish was taught was

only about 140. The statement that our people do not read books is

generally accepted as true, yet the sale of the League publications

during one year reached nearly a quarter of a million copies. These

results cannot be left unconsidered by anybody who wishes to understand

the psychology of the Irish mind. The movement can truly claim to have

effected the conversion of a large amount of intellectual apathy into

genuine intellectual activity.

The declared objects of the League--- the popularising of the national

language and literature--do not convey, perhaps, an adequate conception

of its actual work, or of the causes of its popularity. It seeks to

develop the intellectual, moral, and social life of the Irish people

from within, and it is doing excellent work in the cause of temperance.

Its president, Dr. Douglas Hyde, in his evidence given before the

University Commission,[29] pointed out that the success of the League

was due to its meeting the people half way; that it educated them by

giving them something which they could appreciate and assimilate; and

that it afforded a proof that people who would not respond to alien

educational systems, will respond with eagerness to something they can

call their own. The national factor in Ireland has been studiously

eliminated from national education, and Ireland is perhaps the only

country in Europe where it was part of the settled policy of those, who

had the guidance of education to ignore the literature, history, arts,

and traditions of the people. It was a fatal policy, for it obviously

tended to stamp their native country in the eyes of Irishmen with the

badge of inferiority and to extinguish the sense of healthy self-respect

which comes from the consciousness of high national ancestry and

traditions. This policy, rigidly adhered to for many years, almost

extinguished native culture among Irishmen, but it did not succeed in

making another form of culture acceptable to them. It dulled the

intelligence of the people, impaired their interest in their own

surroundings, stimulated emigration by teaching them to look on other

countries as more agreeable places to live in, and made Ireland almost a

social desert. Men and women without culture or knowledge of literature

or of music have succeeded a former generation who were passionately

interested in these things, an interest which extended down even to the

wayside cabin. The loss of these elevating influences in Irish society

probably accounts for much of the arid nature of Irish controversies,

while the reaction against their suppression has given rise to those

displays of rhetorical patriotism for which the Irish language has found

the expressive term _raimeis_, and which (thanks largely to the Gaelic

movement) most people now listen to with a painful and half-ashamed

sense of their unreality.

The Gaelic movement has brought to the surface sentiments and thoughts

which had been developed in Gaelic Ireland through hundreds of years,

and which no repression had been able to obliterate altogether, but

which still remained as a latent spiritual inheritance in the mind. And

now this stream, which has long run underground, has again emerged even

stronger than before, because an element of national self-consciousness

has been added at its re-emergence. A passionate conviction is gaining

ground that if Irish traditions, literature, language, art, music, and

culture are allowed to disappear, it will mean the disappearance of the

race; and that the education of the country must be nationalised if our

social, intellectual, or even our economic position is to be permanently

improved.

With this view of the Gaelic movement my own thoughts are in complete

accord. It is undeniable that the pride in country justly felt by

Englishmen, a pride developed by education and a knowledge of their

history, has had much to do with the industrial pre-eminence of England;

for the pioneers of its commerce have been often actuated as much by

patriotic motives as by the desire for gain. The education of the Irish

people has ignored the need for any such historical basis for pride or

love of country, and, for my part, I feel sure that the Gaelic League is

acting wisely in seeking to arouse such a sentiment, and to found it

mainly upon the ages of Ireland's story when Ireland was most Irish.

It is this expansion of the sentiment of nationality outside the domain

of party politics--the distinction, so to speak, between nationality and

nationalism--which is the chief characteristic of the Gaelic movement.

Nationality had come to have no meaning other than a political one, any

broader national sentiment having had little or nothing to feed upon.

During the last century the spirit of nationality has found no unworthy

expression in literature, in the writings of Ferguson, Standish O'Grady

and Yeats, which, however, have not been even remotely comparable in

popularity with the political journalism in prose and rhyme in which the

age has been so fruitful. It has never expressed itself in the arts, and

not only has Ireland no representative names in the higher regions of

art, but the national deficiency has been felt in every department of

industry into which design enters, and where national

art-characteristics have a commercial value. The national customs,

culture, and recreations which made the country a pleasant place to live

in, have almost disappeared, and with them one of the strongest ties

which bind people to the country of their birth. The Gaelic revival, as

I understand it, is an attempt to supply these deficiencies, to give to

Irish people a culture of their own; and I believe that by awakening the

feelings of pride, self-respect, and love of country, based on

knowledge, every department of Irish life will be invigorated.

Thus it is that the elevating influence upon the individual is exerted.

Politics have never awakened initiative among the mass of the people,

because there was no programme of action for the individual. Perhaps it

is as well for Ireland that such should have been the case, for, as it

has been shown, we have had little of the political thought which should

be at the back of political action. Political action under present

conditions must necessarily be deputed to a few representatives, and

after the vote is given or the cheering at a meeting has ceased, the

individual can do nothing but wait, and his lethargy tends to become

still deeper. In the Gaelic revival there is a programme of work for the

individual; his mind is engaged, thought begets energy, and this energy

vitalises every part of his nature. This makes for the strengthening of

character, and so far from any harm being done to the practical

movement, to which I have so often referred, the testimony of my

fellow-workers, as well as my own observation, is unanimous in affirming

that the influence of the branches of the Gaelic League is distinctly

useful whenever it is sought to move the people to industrial or

commercial activity.

Many of my political friends cannot believe--and I am afraid that

nothing that I can say will make them believe--that the movement is not

necessarily, in the political sense, separatist in its sentiment. This

impression is, in my opinion, founded on a complete misunderstanding of

Anglo-Irish history. Those who look askance at the rise of the Gaelic

movement ignore the important fact that there has never been any

essential opposition between the English connection and Irish

nationality. The Elizabethan chiefs of the sixteenth and the Gaelic

poets of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the relations

between the two countries were far worse than they are to-day, knew

nothing of this opposition. The true sentiment of nationality is a

priceless heritage of every small nation which has done great things,

and had it not largely perished in Ireland, separatist sentiment, the

offspring, not of Irish nationality, but of Irish political nationalism,

could hardly have survived until to-day.

But undoubtedly we strike here on a danger to the Gaelic movement, so

far at least as that movement is bound up with the future of the Gaelic

League; a danger which cannot be left out of account in any estimate of

this new force in Irish life. The continuance of the League as a

beneficent force, or indeed a force at all, seems to me, as in the case

of the co-operative organisation to which I have compared it, to be

vitally dependent on a scrupulous observance of that part of its

constitution which keeps the door open to Irishmen of every creed or

political party. Only thus can the League remain a truly national body,

and attract from all classes Irishmen who are capable of forwarding its

true policy. I do not think there is much danger of a spirit of

sectarian exclusiveness developing itself in a body mainly composed of

Roman Catholics whose President is a Protestant. But it cannot be denied

that there has been an occasional tendency to interpret the 'no

politics' clause of the constitution in a manner which seems hardly fair

to Unionists or even to constitutional Home Rulers who may have joined

the organisation on the strength of its declaration of political

neutrality. If this is not a mere transitory phenomenon its effect will

be serious. As a political body the League would immediately sink into

insignificance and probably disappear amid a crowd of contending

factions. It would certainly cease to fulfil its great function of

creating a nationality of the thought and spirit, in which all Irishmen

who wish to be anything else than English colonists might aspire to

share. Its early successes in bringing together men of different

political views were remarkable. At the very outset of its career it

enlisted the support of so militant a politician as the late Rev. R.R.

Kane, who declared that though a Unionist and an Orangeman he had no

desire to forget that he was an O'Cahan. On this basis it is difficult

to set a limit to the fruitfulness of the work which this organisation

might do for Ireland, and I cannot regard any who would depart from the

letter and spirit of its constitution as sincere, or if sincere as wise,

friends of the movement with which they are associated.

Of minor importance are certain extravagances in the conduct of the

movement which time and practical experience can hardly fail to correct.

I have borne witness to the value of the cultivation of the language

even from my own practical standpoint, but I cannot think that to sign

cheques in Irish, and get angry when those who cannot understand will

not honour them, is a good way of demonstrating that value. I should,

speaking generally, regard it as a mistake, supposing it were

practicable, to substitute Irish for English in the conduct of business.

If any large development of the trade in pampooties, turf and potheen

between the Aran Islands and the mainland were in contemplation, this

attempt might be justified. But on behalf of those Philistines who

attach paramount importance to the development of Irish industry, trade

and commerce on a large and comprehensive scale, I should regret a

course which, from a business point of view, would be about as wise as

the advocacy of distinctive Irish currency, weights and measures. And I

protest more strongly against the reasons which have been given to me

for this policy. I have been told that, in order to generate sufficient

enthusiasm, a young movement of the kind must adopt a rigorous

discipline and an aggressive policy. Not only are we thus confronted

with a false issue, but by giving countenance to the outward acceptance

of what the better sense rejects, these over-zealous leaguers are

administering to the Irish character the very poison which all Irish

movements should combine to eliminate from the national life.

The position which I have given to the Gaelic Revival among the new

influences at work and making for progress in Ireland will hardly be

understood by those who have never embraced the idea of combining all

such forces in a constructive and comprehensive scheme of national

advancement. One instance of the potential utility of the Gaelic League

will appeal to those of my readers who attach as much importance as I do

to the improvement of the peasant home. Concerted action to this end is

being planned while I write. It is proposed to take a few districts

where the peasants are members of one of the new co-operative societies,

and where the clergy have taken a keen interest in the economic and

social advancement of the members of the Society, but where the cottages

are in the normal condition. The new Department will lend the services

of its domestic economy teachers. The Organisation Society, the clergy,

and the Department thus working together will, I hope, be able to get

the people of the selected districts to effect an improvement in their

domestic surroundings which will act as an invaluable example for other

districts to follow. But in order that this much needed contribution to

the well-being of the peasant proprietary, upon which all our thoughts

are just now concentrated, may be assisted with the enthusiasm which

belongs in Ireland to a consciously national effort, it is hoped that

common action with the Gaelic League may be possible, so that this force

also may be enlisted in the solution of this part of our central

problem, the rehabilitation of rural life in Ireland.

It is, however, on more general grounds that I have, albeit as an

outside observer, watched with some anxiety and much gratification the

progress of the Gaelic Revival. In the historical evolution of the Irish

mind we find certain qualities atrophied, so to speak, by disuse; and to

this cause I attribute the past failures of the race in practical life

at home. I have shown how politics, religion, and our systems of

education have all, in their respective influences upon the people,

missed to a large extent, the effect upon character which they should

have made it their paramount duty to produce. Nevertheless, whenever the

intellect of the people is appealed to by those who know its past, a

recuperative power is manifested which shows that its vitality has not

been irredeemably impaired. It is because I believe that, on the whole,

a right appeal has been made by the Gaelic League that I have borne

testimony to its patriotic endeavours.

The question of the Gaelic Revival seems to be really a form of the

eternal question of the interdependence of the practical and the ideal

in Ireland. Their true relation to each other is one of the hardest

lessons the student of our problems has to learn. I recall an incident

in the course of my own studies which I will here recount, as it appears

to me to furnish an admirable illustration of this difficulty as it

presented itself to a very interesting mind. During the years covering

the rise and fall of Parnell, when interest in the Irish Question was at

its zenith, the newspapers of the United States kept in London a corps

of very able correspondents, who watched and reported to their

transatlantic readers every move in the Home Rule campaign. An American

public, by no means limited to the American-Irish, devoured every morsel

of this intelligence with an avidity which could not have been surpassed

if the United States had been engaged in a war with Great Britain. Among

these correspondents perhaps the most brilliant was the late Harold

Frederic. Not many months before he died I received a letter from him,

in which he said that, although we were unknown to each other, he

thought, from some public utterances of mine, that we must have many

views in common. He had often intended to get an introduction to me, and

now suggested that we should 'waive things and meet.' We met and spent

an evening together, which left some deep impressions on my mind. He

told me that the Irish Question possessed for him a fascination for

which he could give no rational explanation. He had absolutely no tie of

blood or material interest with Ireland, and his friendship for it had

brought him the only quarrels in which he had ever been engaged.

What chiefly interested me in Harold Frederic's philosophy of the Irish

Question was that he had arrived at a diagnosis of the Irish mind not

substantially different from my own. Since that evening I have come

across a passage in one of his novels, which clothes in delightful

language his view of the chaotic psychology of the Celt:

There, in Ireland, you get a strange mixture of elementary early

peoples, walled off from the outer world by the four seas, and

free to work out their own racial amalgam on their own lines. They

brought with them at the outset a great inheritance of Eastern

mysticism. Others lost it, but the Irish, all alone on their

island, kept it alive and brooded on it, and rooted their whole

spiritual side in it. Their religion is full of it; their blood is

full of it.... The Ireland of two thousand years ago is incarnated

in her. They are the merriest people and the saddest, the most

turbulent and the most docile, the most talented and the most

unproductive, the most practical and the most visionary, the most

devout and the most pagan. These impossible contradictions war

ceaselessly in their blood.[30]

In our conversation what struck me most was the influence which politics

had exercised even on his philosophic mind, notwithstanding a low

estimate of our political leaders. In one of a series of three notable

articles upon the Irish Question, which appeared anonymously in the

_Fortnightly Review_[31] in the winter of 1893-4, and of which he told

me he was the writer, he had given a character sketch of what he called

'The Rhetoricians.' Their performances since the Union were summarised

in the phrase 'a century of unremitting gabble,' and he regarded it as a

sad commentary on Irish life that such brilliant talents so largely ran

to waste in destructive criticism.

I naturally turned the conversation on to my own line of thought, and

discussed the practical conclusions to which his studies had led him. I

tried to elicit from him exactly what he had in his mind when, in one of

the articles to which I have referred, he advocated 'a reconstruction of

Ireland on distinctive national lines.' I hoped to find that his

psychological study of my countrymen would enable him to throw some

light upon the means by which play could be given at home to the latent

capacities of the race. I found that he was in entire accord with my

view, that the chief difficulty in the way of constructive statesmanship

was the defect in the Irish character about which I have said so much. I

was prepared for that conclusion, for I had already seen the lack of

initiative admirably appreciated in the following illuminating sentence

of his:--'The Celt will help someone else to do the thing that other has

in mind, and will help him with great zeal and devotion; but he will not

start to do the thing he himself has thought of.'[32] But I was

disappointed when he bade me his first and last good-bye that I had not

convinced him that there was any way out of the Irish difficulty other

than political changes, for which, at the same time, he appeared to

think the people singularly unfitted.

The fact is we had arrived at the point where the student of Irish life

usually finds himself in a _cul de sac_. If he has accurately observed

the conditions, he is face to face with a problem which appears to be in

its nature insoluble. For at every turn he finds things being done wrong

which might so easily be done right, only that nobody is concerned that

they should be done right. And what is worse, when he has learned, in

the course of his investigations, to discount the picturesque

explanation of our unsuccess in practical life which in Ireland veils

the unpleasant truth, he will find that the people are quite aware of

their defects, although they attribute them to causes beyond their power

to remove. Then, too, the sympathetic inquirer is shocked by the lack of

seriousness in it all. With all their past griefs and their high

aspirations, the Irish people seem to be play-acting before the world.

The inquirer does not, perhaps, reflect that, if play-acting be

inconsistent with the deepest emotions, and with the pursuit of high

ideals, then he condemns a little over one half of the human race.[33]

He probably comes to the main conclusion adopted in these pages, and

realises that the Irish Question is a problem of character. And as Irish

character is the product of Irish history, which cannot be re-enacted,

he leaves the problem there. Harold Frederic left it there, and there it

has been taken up by those whose endeavour forms the story which I have

to tell.

I now come to the principles which, it appears to me, must underlie the

solution of this problem. The narrative contained in the second part of

this book is a record of the efforts made during the last decade of the

nineteenth and the first two years of the twentieth century by a small,

but now rapidly augmenting group of Irishmen, to pluck the brand of

Irish intellect from the burning of the Irish Question. The problem

before us was, my readers will now understand, how to make headway in

view of the weakness of character to which I have had to attribute the

paralysis of our activities in the past. We were quite aware that our

progress would at first be slow. But as we were satisfied that the

defects of character which stood in the way of economic advancement were

due to causes which need no longer be operative, and that the intellect

of the people was unimpaired, we faced the problem with confidence.

The practical form which our work took was the launching upon Irish life

of a movement of organised self-help, and the subsequent grafting upon

this movement of a system of State-aid to the agriculture and industries

of the country. I need not here further elaborate this programme, for

the steps by which it has been and is being adopted will be presently

described in detail. But there is one aspect of the new movement in

Ireland which must be understood by those who would grasp the true

significance and the human interest of an evolution in our national

life, the only recent parallel for which, as far as I am aware, is to be

found in Japan: though to my mind the conscious attempt of the Irish

people to develop a civilisation of their own is far more interesting

than the recent efforts of the Japanese to westernise their

institutions.

The problem of mind and character with which we had to deal in Ireland

presented this central and somewhat discouraging fact. In practical life

the Irish had failed where the English had succeeded, and this was

attributed to the lack of certain English qualities which have been

undoubtedly essential to success in commerce and in industry from the

days of the industrial revolution until a comparatively recent date. It

was the individualism of the English economic system during this period

which made these qualities indispensable. The lack of these qualities in

Irishmen to-day may be admitted, and the cause of the deficiency has

been adequately explained. But those who regard the Irish situation as

industrially hopeless probably ignore the fact that there are other

qualities, of great and growing importance under modern economic

conditions, which can be developed in Irishmen and may form the basis of

an industrial system. I refer to the range of qualities which come into

play rather in association than in the individual, and to which the term

'associative' is applied.[34] So that although much disparaging

criticism of Irish character is based upon the survival in the Celt of

the tribal instincts, it is gratifying to be able to show that even from

the practical English point of view, our preference for thinking and

working in groups may not be altogether a _damnosa hereditas_. If, owing

to our deficiency in the individualistic qualities of the English, we

cannot at this stage hope to produce many types of the 'economic man' of

the economists, we think we see our way to provide, as a substitute, the

economic association. If the association succeeds, and by virtue of its

financial success becomes permanent, a great change will, in our

opinion, be produced on the character of its members. The reflex action

upon the individual mind of the habit of doing, in association with

others, things which were formerly left undone, or badly done, may be

relied upon to have a tonic effect upon the character of the individual.

This is, I suppose, the secret of discipline, which, though apparently

eliminating volition, seems in weak characters to strengthen the will.

There is, too, as we have learned, in the association a strange

influence which develops qualities and capacities that one would not

expect on a mere consideration of the character of its members. This

psychological phenomenon has been admirably and most entertainingly

discussed by the French psychologist, Le Bon,[35] who, in the attractive

pursuit of paradox, almost goes to the length of the proposition that

the association inherently possesses qualities the opposite of those

possessed by its members. My own experience--and I have had

opportunities of observing hundreds of associations formed by my friends

upon the principles above laid down--does not carry me quite so far.

But, unquestionably, the association in Ireland does often become an

entity as distinct from the individualities of which it is composed, as

is a new chemical compound from its constituent elements.

Associations of the kind we had in our minds, which were to be primarily

for purely business purposes, were bound to have many collateral

effects. They would open up outside of politics and religion, but not in

conflict with either, a sphere of action where an independence new to

the country would have to be exercised. In Ireland public opinion is

under an obsession which, whether political, religious, historical, or

all three combined, is probably unique among civilised peoples. Until

the last few years, for example, it was our habit--one which immensely

weakened the influence of Ireland in the Imperial Parliament--to form

extravagant estimates of men, exalting and abasing them with irrational

caprice, not according to their qualities so much as by their attitude

towards the passion of the hour. The ups and downs of the reputations of

Lord Spencer and Mr. Arthur Balfour in Ireland are a sufficient

illustration of our disregard of the old Latin proverb which tells us

that no man ever became suddenly altogether bad. Even now public opinion

is too prone to attach excessive value to projects of vague and

visionary development, and to underrate the importance of serious

thought and quiet work, which can be the only solid foundation of our

national progress. In these new associations--humble indeed in their

origin, but destined to play a large part in the people's

lives--projects, professing to be fraught with economic benefit, have to

be judged by the cruel precision of audited balance sheets, and the

worth of men is measured by the solid contribution they have made to the

welfare of the community.

* * * * *

I have now accomplished one long stage of my journey towards the

conclusion of this discussion of the needs of modern Ireland. Were I to

stop here, probably most of those who had been induced to open yet

another book upon the Irish Question would accuse me, and not without

justice, of being responsible for a barren graft upon a barren

controversy. I fear no such criticism, whatever other shortcomings may

be detected, from those who have the patience to read on. For when I

pass from my own reflections to record the work to which many thousands

of my countrymen have addressed themselves in building up the Ireland of

the twentieth century, I shall have a story to tell which must inspire

hope in all who can be persuaded that Ireland in the past has not often

been treated fairly and has never been understood. I have shown--and it

was necessary to show, if a repetition of misunderstanding was to be

avoided--that the Irish people themselves are gravely responsible for

the ills of their country, and that the forces which have mainly

governed their action hitherto are rapidly bringing about their

disappearance as a distinct nationality. But I shall now have to tell of

the widespread and growing adoption of certain new principles of action

which I believe to be consonant with the genius and traditions of the

race, and the acceptance of which seems to me vitally necessary if the

Irish people are to play a worthy part in the future history of the

world. That part is a far greater one than they could ever hope to play

as an independent and separate State, yet their success in playing it

must closely depend upon their remaining a distinct nationality, in the

sense so clearly and wisely indicated by his Majesty when, in his reply

to the address of the Belfast Corporation, he spoke of the 'national

characteristics and ideals' which he desired his kingdoms to cherish in

the midst of their imperial unity.[36] The great experiment which I am

about to relate is, in its own province, one of the many applications

which we see around us of the conception here put forward. And I believe

that a few more years of quiet work by those who are taking part in this

movement, with its appeal to Irish intellect, and its reliance upon

Irish patriotism, is all that is needed to prove that by developing the

industrial qualities of the Celt on associative lines we can in politics

as well as in economics, add strength to the Irish character without

making it less Irish or less attractive than of old.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] This body is fully described in the next chapter.

[29] See Appendix to Third Report, p. 311.

[30] _The Damnation of Theron Ware_. This was the title of the book I

read in the United States. I am told he published it in England under

the title of _Illuminations_--a nice discrimination!

[31] They appeared under the signature of 'X.' in Nov. and Dec., 1893,

and Jan., 1894.

[32] _Fortnightly Review_, Jan. 1894, pp. 11, 12.

[33] The difficulties of the writer who is not a writer are great. I

sent this chapter to two literary friends, one of whom, with the help of

a globe, disputed my accuracy in a learned ethnological disquisition

with which he favoured me. The other warned me to be even more obscure

and sent me the following verses, addressed by 'Cynicus' (J.K. Stephen)

to Shakespeare,

"You wrote a line too much, my sage, Of seers the first, the first of

sayers; For only half the world's a stage, And only all the women

players."

[34] These qualities, as will be explained later, happen to have a

special economic value in the farming industry, and so are available for

the elevation of rural life, with whose problems we are now so deeply

concerned in Ireland. Their applicability to urban life need not be

discussed here. But my study of the co-operative movement in England has

convinced me that, if the English had the associative instincts of the

Irish, that movement would play a part in English life more commensurate

with its numerical strength and the volume of its commercial

transactions, than can be claimed for it so far.

[35] _La Psychologie de la Foule_.

[36] July 27th, 1903,--His Majesty thus confirmed the striking utterance

of imperial policy contained in Lord Dudley's speech to the Incorporated

Law Society, on the 20th of November, 1902. His Excellency, after

protesting against the conception of empire as a 'huge regiment' in

which each nation was to lose its individuality, said--"Lasting

strength, lasting loyalty, are not to be secured by any attempt to force

into one system or to remould into one type those special

characteristics which are the outcome of a nation's history and of her

religious and social conditions, but rather by a full recognition of the

fact that these very characteristics form an essential part of a

nation's life; and that under wise guidance and under sympathetic

treatment they will enable her to provide her own contribution and to

play her own special part in the life of the empire to which she

belongs."

PART II.

_PRACTICAL_.

"For a country so attractive and a people so gifted we cherish the

warmest regard, and it is, therefore, with supreme satisfaction that I

have during our stay so often heard the hope expressed that a brighter

day is dawning upon Ireland. I shall eagerly await the fulfilment of

this hope. Its realisation will, under Divine Providence, depend largely

upon the steady development of self-reliance and co-operation, upon

better and more practical education, upon the growth of industrial and

commercial enterprise, and upon that increase of mutual toleration and

respect which the responsibility my Irish people now enjoy in the public

administration of their local affairs is well-fitted to

teach."--_Message of the King to the Irish People_, 1st August, 1903.

CHAPTER VII.

THE NEW MOVEMENT: ITS FOUNDATION ON SELF-HELP.

The movement for the reorganisation of Irish agricultural and industrial

life, to which I have already frequently referred, must now be described

in practical operation. Before I do this, however, there are two lines

of criticism which the very mention of a new movement may suggest, and

which I must anticipate. Every year has its tale of new movements,

launched by estimable persons whose philanthropic zeal is not balanced

by the judgment required to discriminate between schemes which possess

the elements of permanence, and those which depend upon the enthusiasm

or financial support of their promoters, and are in their nature

ephemeral. There is, consequently, a widespread and well justified

mistrust of novel schemes for the industrial regeneration of Ireland. I

confess to having had my ingenuity severely taxed on some occasions to

find a sympathetic circumlocution wherewith to show cause for declining

to join a new movement, my real reason being an inward conviction that

nothing except resolutions would be moved. In the complex problem of

building up the economic and social life of a people with such a

history as ours, we must resist the temptation to multiply schemes

which, however well intended, are but devices for enabling individuals

to devolve their responsibilities upon the community or upon the

Government, and which owe their bubble reputation and brief popularity

to this unconscious humouring of our chief national defect. On the

contrary, we must seek to instil into the mind of each individual the

too little recognised importance of his own contribution to the sum of

national achievement. The building of character must be our paramount

object, as it is the condition precedent of all social and economic

reform in Ireland. To explain the principles by the observance of which

the agency of the association may be utilised as an economic force,

while at the same time the industrial character of the individual may be

developed, was one of the chief aims I had in view in the foregoing

analysis of the Irish mind and character, as they have emerged from

history and are stunted in their growth by present influences. The facts

about to be recited will, I hope, suffice to prove that the reformer in

Ireland, if he has a true insight into the great human problem with

which he is dealing, may find in the association not only a healthy

stimulus to national activities, but also a means whereby the assistance

of the State may be so invoked and applied that it will concentrate, and

not dissipate, the energies of the people.

The other criticism which I think it necessary to anticipate would, if

ignored, leave room for a wrong impression as to much of the work which

is being done both on the self-help and on the State-aid sides of the

new movement. Education, it will be said, is the only real solvent to

the range of problems discussed in this book, most other agencies of

social and economic reform being of doubtful efficacy and, if they tend

to postpone educational effort, positively harmful. There is much truth

in this view. But it must be remembered that the backward condition of

our economic life is due mainly to the fact that our educational systems

have had little regard to our history or economic circumstances. We

must, therefore, at this stage in our national development give to

education a much wider interpretation than that which is usually applied

to the term. We cannot wait for a generation to grow up which has been

given an education calculated to fit it for the modern economic

struggle, even if there were any probability that the necessary reforms

would soon be carried against the prejudices which are aroused by any

proposal to train the minds, or even the hands and eyes, of the rising

generation. In the meantime much of the work, both voluntary and

State-aided, now initiated in Ireland, must consist of educating adults

to introduce into their business concerns the more advanced economic and

scientific methods which the superior education of our rivals in

agriculture and industry abroad has enabled them to adopt, and which my

experience of Irish work convinces me our people would have adopted long

ago if they had had similar educational advantages. And I would further

point out that there is no better way of promoting the reform of

education in the ordinary, the pedagogic, sense, than by bringing to

bear upon the minds of parents those educational influences which are

calculated to convince them of the advantage of improved practical

education for their children. So to the economist and to the

educationist alike I would submit that the new work of economic and

social reform should be judged as a whole, and not prejudged by that

hypercriticism of details which ignores the fact that the conditions

with which it is attempted to deal are wholly unprecedented. I am quite

content that the movement which I am about to describe should be

ultimately known and judged by its fruits. Meanwhile, I think that to

the intelligent critic it will sufficiently justify its existence if it

continues to exist.

* * * * *

The story of the new movement, which must now be told, begins in the

year 1889, when a few Irishmen, the writer of these pages among them,

set themselves the task of bringing home to the rural population of

Ireland the fact that their prosperity was in their own hands much more

than they were generally led to believe. I have already pointed out that

in order to direct the Irish mind towards practical affairs and in order

effectively to arouse and apply the latent capacities of the Irish

people to their chief industry, agriculture, we must rely upon

associative, as distinct from individual effort; or, in other words, we

must get the people to do their business together rather than

separately as the English do. Fortunately for us, it happened that this

course, which was clearly indicated by the character and temperament of

the people, was equally prescribed by economic considerations. The

population and wealth of Ireland are, I need hardly say, so

predominantly agricultural that the welfare of the country must depend

upon the welfare of the farming classes. It is notorious that the

industry by which these classes live has for the last quarter of a

century become less and less profitable. It is also recognised that the

prime cause of agricultural depression, foreign competition, is not

likely to be removed, while that from the colonies is likely to

increase. The extraordinary development of rapid and cheap transit,

together with recently invented processes of preservation, have enabled

the more favoured producers in the newly developed countries of both

hemispheres successfully to enter into competition in the British

markets with the farmers of these islands. The agricultural producers in

other European countries, although to some extent protected by tariffs,

have had to face similar conditions; but in most of these countries,

though not in the United Kingdom, the farmers have so changed their

methods, to meet the altered circumstances, that they seem to have

gained by improvement at home as much as they have lost by competition

from abroad Thus our farmers find themselves harassed first by the

cheaper production from vast tracts of virgin soil in the uttermost

parts of the earth, and secondly by a nearer and keener competition

from the better organised and better educated producers of the

Continent.

While the opening up of what the economists call the 'world market,' has

necessitated, as a condition of successful competition, improved methods

of production for, and carriage to, the market, a third and less obvious

force has effected an important change in the method of distribution in

the market. The swarming populations, which the factory system has

brought together in industrial centres, have to be supplied with food by

a system of distribution which must above all things be expeditious.

This requirement can only be met by the regular consignment of food in

large quantities, of such uniform quality that the sample can be relied

upon to be truly indicative of the quality of the bulk. Thus the rapid

distribution of produce in the markets becomes as important a factor in

agricultural economy as improved methods of production or cheap and

expeditious carriage.

Now this new market condition is being met in two ways. In the United

States, and, in a less marked degree, at home, an army of middlemen

between the producer and the consumer attends to this business for a

share of the profits accruing from it, whilst in many parts of the

Continent the farmers themselves attend, partially at any rate, to the

business side of their industry instead of paying others to do it all

for them. I say all, for middlemen are necessary at the distributive

end: but it is absolutely essential, in a country like Ireland, that at

the producing end the farmers should be so organised that they

themselves can manage the first stages of distribution, and exercise

some control over the middlemen who do the rest. The foreign

agricultural producers have long been alive to this necessity, for their

superior education enabled them to grasp the economic situation and even

to realise that the matter is not one of acute political controversy.

Here, then, was a definite practical problem to the solution of which

the promoters of the new movement could apply their principle of

co-operative effort. The more we studied the question the more apparent

it became that the enormous advantage which the Continental farmers had

over the Irish farmers, both in production and in distribution, was due

to superior organisation combined with better education. State-aid had

no doubt done a great deal abroad, but in every case it was manifest

that it had been preceded, or at least accompanied, by the organised

voluntary effort without which the interference of the Government with

the business of the people is simply demoralising.

Generally speaking, the task before us in Ireland was the adaptation to

the special circumstances of our country of methods successfully pursued

by communities similarly situated in foreign countries. We had to urge

upon farmers that combination was just as necessary to their economic

salvation as it was recognised to be by their own class, and by those

engaged in other industries, elsewhere. They must combine, so we urged

on them, for example, to buy their agricultural requirements at the

cheapest rate and of the best quality in order to produce more

efficiently and more economically; they must combine to avail themselves

of improved appliances beyond the reach of individual producers, whether

it be by the erection of creameries, for which there was urgent need, or

of cheese factories and jam factories which might come later; or in

ordinary farm operations, to secure the use of the latest agricultural

machinery and the most suitable pure-bred stock; they must combine--not

to abolish middle profits in distribution, whether those of the carrying

companies or those of the dealers in agricultural produce--but to keep

those profits within reasonable limits, and to collect in bulk and

regularise consignments so that they could be carried and marketed at a

moderate cost; they must combine, as we afterwards learned, for the

purpose of creating, by mutual support, the credit required to bring in

the fresh working capital which each new development of their industry

would demand and justify. In short, whenever and wherever the

individuals in a farming community could be brought to see that they

might advantageously substitute associated for isolated production or

distribution, they must be taught to form themselves into associations

in order to reap the anticipated advantages.

This brief statement of our general aims will furnish a rough idea of

the economic propaganda which we initiated, and if I give a few

illustrations of the practical application of the new principle to the

farming industry, I shall have done all that will be required to leave

on the reader's mind a true though perhaps an incomplete impression of

the character and scope of the self-help side of the new movement. I

shall first give a sketch of the unrecorded struggles of its pioneers,

because these struggles prove to those engaged in social and economic

work in Ireland that, in the wholly abnormal condition of our national

life, no project which is theoretically sound need be rejected because

everybody says it is impracticable. The work of the morrow will largely

consist of the impossible of to-day. If this adds to the difficulty, it

also adds to the fun.

When we arrived at the conclusion that the introduction of the principle

of agricultural co-operation was a vital necessity, the first practical

question which had to be decided was how the industrial army, which was

to do battle for Ireland's position in the world market, should be

organised and disciplined for the task. It is evident that before a body

of men who have never worked together can form a successful commercial

combination, they must be provided with a constitution and set of rules

and regulations for the conduct of their business. These must be so

skilfully contrived that they will harmonise all the interests involved.

And when an arrangement has been come to which is, not only in fact but

also obviously, equitable, it remains as part of the process of

organisation to teach the participants in the new project the meaning,

and to imbue them with the spirit, of the joint enterprise into which

they have been persuaded to enter with perhaps no very clear

understanding of all that is involved. There were in Ireland no

precedents to guide us and no examples to follow, but the co-operative

movement in England appeared to furnish most of the principles involved

and a perfect machinery for their application.[37] So Lord Monteagle and

Mr. R.A. Anderson, my first two associates in the New Movement, joined

me as regular attendants at the annual Co-operative congresses. We were

assiduous seekers after information at the head-quarters of the

Co-operative Union in Manchester. We had the good fortune to fall in

with Vansittart Neale, and Tom Hughes, both of whom have passed away,

and with Mr. Holyoake, who, with the exception of Mr. Ludlow, is now the

sole survivor of that noble group of practical philanthropists, the

Christian Socialists. Mr. J.C. Gray, who succeeded Mr. Vansittart Neale

as the General Secretary of the Co-operative Union, gave us invaluable

help and continues to do so to this day. The leaders of the English

movement sympathised with our efforts. The Union paid us the compliment

of constituting our first converts its Irish Section. Liberal support

was given out of the central English funds towards the cost of the

missionary work which was to spread co-operative light in the sister

isle. We can never forget the generosity of the workingmen in England in

giving their aid to the Irish farmers, especially when it is remembered

that they had no sanguine anticipations for the success of our efforts

and no prospect of advantages to themselves if we did succeed.

It must be admitted that the outlook was not altogether rosy.

Agricultural co-operation had never succeeded in England, where it

seemed to be accepted as one of the disappointing limitations of the

co-operative movement that it did not apply to rural communities in

these islands. There were also in Ireland the peculiar difficulties

arising from ceaseless political and agrarian agitation. It was

naturally asked--did Irish farmers possess the qualities out of which

co-operators are made? Had they commercial experience or business

education? Had they business capacity? Would they display that

confidence in each other which is essential to successful association,

or indeed that confidence in themselves without which there can be no

business enterprise? Could they ever be induced to form themselves into

societies, and to adopt, and loyally adhere to those rules and

regulations by which alone equitable distribution of the responsibility

and profit among the participants in the joint undertaking can be

assured, and harmony and successful working be rendered possible? Then,

our best-informed Irish critics assured us that voluntary association

for humdrum business purposes, devoid of some religious or political

incentive, was alien to the Celtic temperament and that we should wear

ourselves out crying in the wilderness. We were told that Irishmen can

conspire but cannot combine. Economists assured us that even if we

succeeded in getting farmers to embark on the projected enterprises,

financial disaster would be the inevitable result of our attempts to

substitute in industrial undertakings, ever becoming more technical and

requiring more and more commercial knowledge and experience, democratic

management for one-man control.

On the other hand there were some favouring conditions, the importance

of which our studies of the human problems already discussed will have

made my readers realise. Isolated, the Irish farmer is conservative,

sceptical of innovations, a believer in routine and tradition. In union

with his fellows, he is progressive, open to ideas, and wonderfully keen

at grasping the essential features of any new proposal for his

advancement. He was, then, himself eminently a subject for co-operative

treatment, and his circumstances were equally so. The smallness of his

holding, the lack of capital, and the backwardness of his methods made

him helpless in competition with his rivals abroad. The process of

organisation was also, to some extent, facilitated by the insight the

people had been given by the Land League into the power of combination,

and by the education they had received in the conduct of meetings. It

was a great advantage that there was a machinery ready at hand for

getting people together, and a procedure fully understood for giving

expression to the sense of the meeting. On the other hand, the

domination of a powerful central body, which was held to be essential to

the success of the political and agrarian movement, had exercised an

influence which added enormously to the difficulty of getting the people

to act on their own initiative.

Though the economic conditions of the Irish farmer clearly indicated a

need for the application of co-operative effort to all branches of his

industry, it was necessary at the beginning to embrace a more limited

aim. It happened at the time we commenced our Irish work that one branch

of farming, the dairying industry, presented features admirably adapted

to our methods. This industry was, so to speak, ripe for its industrial

development, for its change from a home to a factory industry. New

machinery, costly but highly efficient, had enabled the factory product,

notably that of Denmark and Sweden, to compete successfully with the

home-made article, both in quality and cost of production. Here, it will

be observed, was an opportunity for an experiment in co-operative

production, under modern industrial conditions, which would put the

associative qualities of the Irish farmer to a test which the British

artisan had not stood quite as well as the founders of the co-operative

movement had anticipated. To add to the interest of the situation,

capitalists had seized upon the material advantages which the abundant

supply of Irish milk afforded, and the green pastures of the "Golden

Vein" were studded with snow white creameries which proclaimed the

transfer of this great Irish industry from the tiller of the soil to the

man of commerce. The new-comers secured the milk of the district by

giving the farmer much more for his milk than it was worth to him, so

long as he pursued the old methods of home manufacture. This induced

farmers to go out of the butter-making business. After a while the price

was reduced, and the proprietor, finding it necessary to give the

suppliers only what they could make out of their milk without his modern

equipment, realised profits altogether out of proportion to his share of

the capital embarked or the labour involved in the production of the

butter.

The economic position was ideal for our purpose, and we had no

difficulty in explaining it to the farmers themselves. The social

problem was the real difficulty. To all suggestions of co-operative

action they at first opposed a hopeless _non possumus_. Their objections

may be summed up thus:--They had never combined for any business

purpose. How could they trust the Committee they were asked to elect

from amongst themselves to expend their money and conduct their

business? It was all very well for the proprietor with his ample

capital, free hand, and business experience, to work with complicated

machinery and to consign his butter out of the reach of the local butter

buyer, and to save the waste and delay of the local butter market. But

they knew nothing of the business and would only make fools of

themselves. The promoters--they were not putting anything into the

scheme--how much did they intend to take out?[38]

There was nothing in this attitude of mind which we had not fully

anticipated. We were confident that, as we were on sound economic

ground, no matter what difficulties might confront us it was only a

question of time for the attainment of our ends. All that was required

was that we should keep pegging away. My own experience was not

encouraging at first. I was, and am, a poor speaker, and in Ireland a

man who cannot express his thoughts with facility, whether he has got

them or not, accentuates the difficulties under which a prophet labours

in his own country. I made up for my deficiencies in the first essential

of Irish public life by engaging a very eloquent political speaker, the

late Mr. Mulhallen Marum, M.P., to stump the country. He gave to the

propaganda a relish which my prosaic economics altogether lacked. The

nationalist band sometimes came out to meet him. We all know the

efficiency of the drum in politics and religion, but it seemed to me a

little out of place in economics. However, he created an excellent

impression, but unhappily he died of heart disease before he had

attended more than three or four meetings. This was a severe blow to us,

and we toiled away under some temporary discouragement. My own diary

records attendance at fifty meetings before a single society had

resulted therefrom. It was weary work for a long time. These gatherings

were miserable affairs compared with those which greeted our political

speakers. On one occasion the agricultural community was represented by

the Dispensary Doctor, the Schoolmaster, and the Sergeant of Police.

Sometimes, in spite of copious advertising of the meeting, the prosaic

nature of the objects had got abroad, and nobody met.

Mr. Anderson, who sometimes accompanied me and sometimes went his rounds

alone, had similar experiences. I may quote a passage from some of his

reminiscences, recently published in the _Irish Homestead_, the organ of

the co-operative movement in Ireland.

It was hard and thankless work. There was the apathy of the people

and the active opposition of the Press and the politicians. It

would be hard to say now whether the abuse of the Conservative

_Cork Constitution_ or that of the Nationalist _Eagle_, of

Skibbereen, was the louder. We were "killing the calves," we were

"forcing the young women to emigrate," we were "destroying the

industry." Mr. Plunkett was described as a "monster in human

shape," and was adjured to "cease his hellish work." I was

described as his "Man Friday" and as "Rough-rider Anderson." Once,

when I thought I had planted a Creamery within the precincts of the

town of Rathkeale, my co-operative apple-cart was upset by a local

solicitor who, having elicited the fact that our movement

recognised neither political nor religious differences--that the

Unionist-Protestant cow was as dear to us as her

Nationalist-Catholic sister--gravely informed me that our programme

would not suit Rathkeale. "Rathkeale," said he, pompously, "is a

Nationalist town--Nationalist to the backbone--and every pound of

butter made in this Creamery must be made on Nationalist

principles, or it shan't be made at all." This sentiment was

applauded loudly, and the proceedings terminated.

On another occasion a similar project was abandoned because the flow of

water to the disused mill which it was proposed to convert into a

creamery, passed through a conduit lined with cement originally

purchased from a man who now occupied a farm from which another had been

evicted. To some minds these little complications would have spelled

failure. To my associates they but accentuated the need for the movement

which they had so laboriously thought out, and the very nature of the

difficulties confirmed them in their belief that the economic doctrine

they were preaching was adapted to meet the requirements of the case.

And so the event proved.

In the year 1894 the movement had gathered volume to such an

extent--although the societies then numbered but one for every twenty

that are in existence to-day--that it became beyond the power of a few

individuals to direct its further progress. In April of that year a

meeting was held in Dublin to inaugurate the Irish Agricultural

Organisation Society, Ltd. (now commonly known as the I.A.O.S.), which

was to be the analogue of the Co-operative Union in England. In the

first instance it was to consist of philanthropic persons, but its

constitution provided for the inclusion in its membership of the

societies which had already been created and those which it would itself

create as time went on. It had, and has to-day, a thoroughly

representative Committee. I was elected the first President, a position

which I held until I entered official life, when Lord Monteagle, a

practical philanthropist if ever there was one, became my successor.

Father Finlay, who joined the movement in 1892, and who has devoted the

extraordinary influence which he possesses over the rural population of

Ireland to the dissemination of our economic principles, became

Vice-President. Both he and Lord Monteagle have been annually re-elected

ever since.

The growth of the movement in the last nine years under the fostering

care of the I.A.O.S. is highly satisfactory. By the autumn of this year

(1903) considerably over eight hundred societies had been established,

and the number is ever growing; of these 360 were dairy, and 140

agricultural societies, nearly 200 agricultural banks, 50 home

industries societies, 40 poultry societies, while there were 40 others

with miscellaneous objects. The membership may be estimated--I am

writing towards the end of the Society's statistical year--at about

80,000, representing some 400,000 persons. The combined trade turnover

of these societies during the present year will reach approximately

£2,000,000, a figure the meaning of which can only be appreciated when

it is remembered that the great majority of the associated farmers are

in so small a way of business that in England they would hardly be

classed as farmers at all.

These societies consist, as has been explained, of groups of farmers who

have been taught by organisers that certain branches of their business

can be more profitably conducted in association than by individuals

acting separately. The principle of agricultural co-operation with its

economic advantages will, as time goes on, be further extended by the

combined action of societies. With this end in view federations are

constantly being formed with a constitution similar to that of the

societies, the only difference being that the members of the federation

are not individuals but societies, the government of the central body

being carried on by delegates from its constituent associations. The two

largest of these federations, one for the sale of butter, and another

for the combined purchase by societies of their agricultural

requirements, have been working successfully for several years.

Federations, too, are being formed, as societies find that their

business can be conducted more economically, for example, in dairying by

centralising the manufacture of butter, or in the egg export trade by

the alliance of many districts to enable large contracts to be

undertaken. In the near future a further development of federation will

be required to complete a scheme now under consideration for the mutual

insurance of live stock. Such a scheme involves the existence of two

prime conditions, a local organisation for the purpose of effective

supervision, and the spreading of the risk over a large area.

In all such enterprises and economic changes the Organisation Society is

either the initiator, or is called in for advice, and its continued

existence in a purely advisory capacity as a link between the societies

where concerted action is required, will be necessary even when the

organisation of farmers into societies is completed. The economic life

of rural communities is in continual need of adjustment. Now it is an

invention like a steam separator which revolutionises an industry. At

another time the crisis created by a change in the tariff of a foreign

country forces the producer either to find a new outlet for his wares,

or to abandon a hitherto profitable employment. A striking instance of

the value of organisation and connection with a central advisory body

occurred in 1887, when swine fever broke out in Denmark, and the exports

of live swine fell from 230,000 in one year to 16,000 in the next. The

organisation of the farmers, however, enabled them easily to consult

together how best to meet the emergency, and their decision to start

co-operative bacon-curing factories was the foundation of their present

great export trade in manufactured bacon.

I must not overburden with details a narrative intended for readers to

whom I merely wish to give a deeper and wider understanding of Irish

life than most of them probably possess. But there is just one form of

agricultural co-operation to which I can usefully devote a few

paragraphs, because it throws much light upon the associative qualities

of the people and also upon the educational and social value of the

movement. I refer to the Agricultural Banks, more properly called Credit

Associations, which have been organised upon the Raiffeisen system.

Before the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society was formed we had

read of these institutions, and of the marvellously beneficial effect

they had produced upon the most depressed rural communities abroad. But

only in the last few years have we fully realised that they are even

more required and are likely to do more good in Ireland than in any

other country; for on the psychological side of our work we formerly but

dimly saw things which we now see clearly.

The exact purpose of these organisations is to create credit as a means

of introducing capital into the agricultural industry. They perform the

apparent miracle of giving solvency to a community composed almost

entirely of insolvent individuals. The constitution of these bodies,

which can, of course, be described only in broad outline here, is

somewhat startling. They have no subscribed capital, but every member is

liable for the entire debts of the association. Consequently the

association takes good care to admit men of approved character and

capacity only. It starts by borrowing a sum of money on the joint and

several security of its members. A member wishing to borrow from the

association is not required to give tangible security, but must bring

two sureties. He fills up an application form which states, among other

things, what he wants the money for. The rules provide--and this is the

salient feature of the system--that a loan shall be made for a

productive purpose only, that is, a purpose which, in the judgment of

the other members of the association as represented by a committee

democratically elected from among themselves, will enable the borrower

to repay the loan out of the results of the use made of the money lent.

Raiffeisen held, and our experience in Ireland has fully confirmed his

opinion, that in the poorest communities there is a perfectly safe basis

of security in the honesty and industry of its members. This security is

not valuable to the ordinary commercial lender, such as the local joint

stock bank. Even if such lenders had the intimate knowledge possessed by

the committee of one of these associations as to the character and

capacity of the borrower, they would not be able to satisfy themselves

that the loan was required for a really productive purpose, nor would

they be able to see that it was properly applied to the stipulated

object. One of the rules of the co-operative banks provides for the

expulsion of a member who does not apply the money to the agreed

productive purpose. But although these "Banks" are almost invariably

situated in very poor districts, there has been no necessity to put this

rule in force in a single instance. Social influences seem to be quite

sufficient to secure obedience to the association's laws.

Another advantage conferred by the association is that the term for

which money is advanced is a matter of agreement between the borrower

and the bank. The hard and fast term of three months which prevails in

Ireland for small loans is unsuited to the requirements of the

agricultural industry--as for instance, when a man borrows money to sow

a crop, and has to repay it before harvest. The society borrows at four

or five per cent, and lends at five or six per cent. In some cases the

Congested Districts Board or the Department of Agriculture have made

loans to these banks at three per cent. This enables the societies to

lend at the popular rate of one penny for the use of one pound for a

month. The expenses of administration are very small. As the credit of

these associations develops, they will become a depository for the

savings of the community, to the great advantage of both lender and

borrower. The latter generally makes an enormous profit out of these

loans, which have accordingly gained the name of 'the lucky money,' and

we find, in practice, that he always repays the association and almost

invariably with punctuality.

The sketch I have given of the agricultural banks will, perhaps, be

sufficient to show what an immense educational and economic benefit they

are likely to confer when they are widely extended throughout Ireland,

as I hope they will be in the near future. Under this system, which, to

quote the report of the Indian Famine Commission, 1901, 'separates the

working bees from the drones,' the industrious men of the community who

had no clear idea before of the meaning or functions of capital or

credit, and who were generally unable to get capital into their industry

except at exorbitant rates of interest and upon unsuitable terms, are

now able to get, not always, indeed, all the money they want, but all

the money they can well employ for the improvement of their industry.

There is no fear of rash investment of capital in enterprises believed

to be, but not in reality productive--the committee take good care of

that. The whole community is taught the difference between borrowing to

spend and borrowing to make. You have the collective wisdom of the best

men in the association helping the borrower to decide whether he ought

to borrow or not, and then assisting him, if only from motives of

self-interest, to make the loan fulfil the purpose for which it was

made. I was delighted to find when I was making an enquiry into the

working of the system that, whereas the debt-laden peasants had formerly

concealed their indebtedness, of which they were ashamed, those who were

in debt to the new banks were proud of the fact, as it was the best

testimonial to their character for honesty and industry.[39]

One other sphere of activity worked by the co-operative associations

needs a passing notice. The desire that, together with material

amelioration, there should be a corresponding intellectual advancement

and a greater beauty in life has prompted many of the farmers' societies

to use their organisation for higher ends. A considerable number of them

have started Village Libraries, and by an admirable selection of books

have brought to their members, not only the means of educating

themselves in the more difficult technical problems of their industry,

but also a means of access to that enchanted world of Irish thought

which inspires the Gaelic Revival to which I have already referred.

Social gatherings of every kind, dances, lectures, concerts, and such

like entertainments, which have the two-fold effect of brightening rural

life and increasing the attachment of the members to their society, are

becoming a common feature in the movement, and this more human aspect

has attracted to it the attention of many who do not understand its

economic side. We have gratifying evidence from many of the clergy that

the movement thus developed has kept at home young people who would

otherwise have fled from the continued hardship and intellectual

emptiness of rural life at home.

These results are in no small measure due to the zeal and devotion of

the governing body and staff of the I.A.O.S. The general policy of the

society is guided by a committee of twenty-four members, one-half of

whom are elected by the individual subscribers and the other half by the

affiliated societies. It is representative in the best sense and

influential accordingly. The success of the Committee is no doubt mainly

due to the wisdom which they have displayed in the selection of the

staff. In the most important post, that of Secretary, they have kept on

my chief fellow-worker in the early struggle, Mr. R.A. Anderson, who has

devoted himself to the cause with all the energy of a nature at once

enthusiastic, unselfish, and practical, and who has succeeded in

inspiring his staff of organisers and experts with his own spirit. Among

these, two deserve special mention, Mr. George W. Russell, one of the

Assistant Secretaries, who has, under the _nom de plume_ "A.E.,"

attained fame for a poetry of rare distinction of thought and diction,

and Mr. P.J. Hannon, the other Assistant Secretary, who has proved

himself a splendid propagandist. Each of these gentlemen has brought to

the movement a zeal and ability which could only come of a devotion to

high ideals of patriotism, curiously combined with a shrewd practical

instinct for carrying on varied and responsible business undertakings.

With the growing work the staff has been repeatedly augmented to enable

the central society to keep pace with the demand made by groups of

farmers to be initiated into the principles of co-operative

organisation and the details of its application to the particular

branches of farming carried on in their several districts. At the same

time the societies which have been established need, during their

earlier years, and with each extension of their operations, constant

advice and supervision. Hence skilled organisers have to be kept to form

co-operative dairy societies, inspect creameries, and give technical

advice upon the manufacture and sale of butter, the care of machinery,

the adequacy of the water supply, the drainage system, and many similar

technical questions. Others are employed to start poultry societies,

which when organised have still to be instructed by a Danish expert in

the proper method of packing, selecting, and grading the eggs for

export. In tillage districts there is a constant demand for organisers

of purely agricultural societies, which aim at the joint purchase of

seeds and manures, of implements and other farm requisites, and at the

better disposal of produce; while the growing importance of an improved

system of agricultural credit keeps four organisers of agricultural

banks constantly at work Home industries, bee-keeping, and horticulture,

may be added to the objects for which societies have been formed and

which require separate expert organisers. And in addition to all this

work, the central association has found it necessary to keep a staff of

accountants, versed in the principles of co-operative organisation, to

instruct these miscellaneous societies in simple and efficient systems

of bookkeeping, and in the general principles of conducting business.

To complete the description of the propagandist activities of the

central body, there is a ceaseless flow of leaflets and circulars

containing advice and direction to bodies of farmers who, for the first

time in their lives, have combined for business purposes; while a little

weekly paper, the _Irish Homestead_, acts as the organ of the movement,

promotes the exchange of ideas between societies scattered throughout

the country, furnishes useful information upon all matters connected

with their business operations, and keeps constantly before the

associated farmers the economic principles which must be observed, and,

above all, the spirit in which the work must be approached, if the

movement is to fulfil its mission.[40]

One of the difficulties incidental to a movement of this kind, which,

for the reasons already set forth, had to be rapidly and widely

extended, was the enormous cost to its supporters. It is needless to say

that such a staff as I have described could not be kept continuously

travelling by rail and road for so many years without the provision of a

large fund. These officers must obviously be men with exceptional

qualifications, if they are not only to impress the thought of their

agricultural audiences, but also to move them to action, and to sustain

the newly organised societies through the initial difficulties of their

unfamiliar enterprise. Such men are not to be found idle, and if they

preach this gospel, they are entitled to live by it. They are not by any

means overpaid, but their salaries in the aggregate amount to a large

annual sum. Before the creation of the Department of Agriculture and

Technical Instruction in 1900 large sums were spent by the I.A.O.S. not

only in its proper work of organisation, but also in giving technical

instruction, which was found to be essential to commercial success. When

the Society was relieved of this educational work many of its supporters

withdrew their subscriptions under the impression that there was now no

longer any need for its continued existence. But so far from the

Society's usefulness having ceased, it has now become more important

than ever that the doctrine of organised self-help, which must be the

foundation of any sound Irish economic policy, should be insisted upon

and put into practical operation as widely as possible. All those who

are devoting their lives to the firm establishment of this self-help

movement among the chief wealth-producers of the country are agreed that

no better educational work can be done at the moment than that which is

bringing about so salutary a change in the economic attitude of the

Irish mind.

It is not to be wondered at that the greater part of the necessary funds

should have been drawn from a very limited circle of public-spirited men

capable of grasping the significance of a movement the practical effect

of which would appear to be permanent only to those who had a deep

insight into Irish problems.[41] The difficulty of a successful appeal

to a wider public has been the impossibility of giving in brief form an

adequate explanation, such as that which it is hoped these pages will

afford, of the part the movement was to play in Irish life. We were

asked whether our scheme was business or philanthropy. If philanthropy,

it would probably do more harm than good. If business, why was it not

self-supporting? I remember hearing the movement ridiculed in the House

of Commons by a prominent Irish member on the ground that the accounts

of the I.A.O.S. showed that £20,000 (£40,000 would be nearer the mark

now) had been put into the 'business,' and that this large capital had

been entirely lost! When we proved that agricultural co-operation

brought a large profit to the members of the societies we formed, it was

suggested that a small part of this profit would give us all we required

for our organising work. So it will in time, but if instead of merely

refusing financial assistance to our converts, we were, on the other

hand, to demand it from them, we certainly should not lessen the

difficulty of launching our movement among the farmers of Ireland. Some

of our critics denounced the expenditure of so much money for which, in

their opinion, there was nothing to show, and said that the time had

come to stop this 'spoon-feeding.' When those for whose exclusive

benefit the costly work had been undertaken learned that all we had to

offer was the cold advice that they should help themselves, they not

infrequently raised a wholly different objection to our economic

doctrine. Spoonfeeding they might have tolerated, but there was nothing

in the spoon! The movement has survived all these criticisms. The lack

of moral and of financial support which retarded its progress in the

early years, has been so far surmounted The movement may now, I think,

appeal for further help as one that has justified its existence. The

opinion that it has done so is not held only by those who are engaged in

promoting it, nor by Irish observers alone. The efforts of the Irish

farmers so to reorganise their industry that they may hopefully approach

the solution of the problems of rural life are being watched by

economists and administrators abroad. Enquirers have come to Ireland

during the last two years from Germany, France, Canada, the United

States, India, South Africa, Cyprus and the West Indies, having been

drawn here by the desire to understand the combination of economic and

human reform. It was not alone the economic advantages of the movement

which interested them, but the way in which the organisation at the same

time acted upon the character and awoke those forces of self-help and

comradeship in which lies the surety of any enduring national

prosperity. A native governor from a famine district in the Madras

Presidency, who, perhaps, better than any one realised the importance

of these human factors, because the lethargy of his own people had

forced it on his notice, said, when he was referred to the Department of

Agriculture and Technical Instruction for information, "Oh, don't speak

to me about Government Departments. They are the same all over the

world. I come here to learn what the Irish people are doing to help

themselves and how you awaken the will and the initiative." I hope to

show later that State assistance properly applied is not necessarily

demoralising but very much the reverse. It is consoling, too, to our

national pride, long wounded by contemptuous references to our

industrial incapacity as compared with our neighbours, to find that our

latest efforts are regarded by them as worthy of imitation. From the

other side of the Channel no less than five County Councils have sent

deputations of farmers to Ireland to study the progress of the movement,

and already an English Organisation Society, expressly modelled upon its

Irish namesake, has been established and is endeavouring to carry out

the same work.