"The most important economic question for all nations in the past has
been, and in the future will be, the question of a sufficient food
supply, independent of imports.
"It is doubtful whether the replacement of German agriculture on a sound
basis in the last ten years is to be ascribed in a greater measure to
technical advance in agricultural methods, or to the development of the
co-operative system. Perhaps it would be right to say that for the large
farms it is due to the first, and for the smaller farms (three quarters
of the arable land in Germany) to the second. _For it is only through
co-operation that the advantages of farming on a large scale are made
possible for smaller farmers._ The more important of those advantages
are the regulated purchase of all raw materials and half-finished
products (artificial manures, feeding stuffs, seeds, etc.), better
prices for products, facilities for making use, in moderation, of
personal credit at a cheap rate of interest, together with the
possibility of saving and putting aside small sums of interest; all
these advantages of the large farmer have been placed within the reach
of the small farmers by local co-operative societies for buying,
selling, and farming co-operatively, as well as by saving and other
banks, all connected to central associations and central co-operative
societies.
"_Over two million small farmers are organised in Germany on
co-operative lines._"[E]
Nearly two million small farmers co-operated in Germany; and here-how
many? The Registrar returns the numbers for 1916 at 1,427 small holders.
In the view of all authorities co-operation is essential for the success
of small farmers and small holders; but it needs no brilliant intellect,
nor any sweep of the imagination to see a truth plainer than the nose on
a man's face.
"There is some reason to hope," says Mr. Middleton, "that after the war
agriculturalists will show a greater disposition to co-operate; but we
cannot expect co-operation to do as much for British agriculture as it
has done for the Germans, who so readily join societies and support
co-operative efforts."
So much the worse for us!
The Agricultural Organisation Society, the officially recognised agency
for fostering the co-operative principle, has recently formed an
Agricultural Wholesale Society with a large subscribed capital, for the
purchase of all farming requirements, and the marketing of produce, to
be at the disposal of all co-operated farmers, small holders, and
allotment holders, whose societies are affiliated to the Agricultural
Organisation. Society. This is a step of infinite promise. The drawing
together of these three classes of workers on the land is in itself a
matter of great importance. One of the chief complaints of small holders
in the past has been that large holders regard them askance. The same,
perhaps, applies to the attitude of the small holder to the allotment
holder. That is all bad. Men and women on the land should be one big
family, with interests, and sympathies in common and a neighbourly
feeling.
A leaflet of the Agricultural Organisation Society thus describes a
certain co-operative small holdings' society with seventeen members
renting ninety acres. "It owns a team of horses, cart, horse-hoe,
plough, ridger, harrow, Cambridge roller, marker; and hires other
implements as required; it insures, buys, and sells co-operatively. This
year (for patriotic reasons) wheat and potatoes form the chief crop,
with sufficient oats, barley, beans and mangolds to feed the horses and
the pigs, of which there are many. The society last year marketed more
fat pigs than the rest of the village and adjoining farms put together.
"The land, on the whole, is undoubtedly better cultivated and cropped,
and _supports a far larger head of population per acre than the
neighbouring large farms_." Even allowing that the first statement may
be disputed, the last is beyond dispute, and is _the_ important thing to
bear in mind about small holdings from the national point of view; for
every extra man and woman on the land is a credit item in the bank book
of the nation's future.
"In addition," says the leaflet, "there is a friendly spirit prevalent
among the members, who are always willing to help each other, and at
harvest time combine to gather in the crops."
With more land, not only some, but all the members of this little
society could support themselves entirely on their holdings. "The
members value their independence and freedom, but recognise the value of
combined action and new ideas."
Now this is exactly what we want. For instance, these members have found
out that the profit on potatoes when home-grown farmyard manure alone
was used was only 14_s._ 6_d._ per acre; and that a suitable combination
of artificial manures gave a profit of £14 12_s._ 6_d._ an acre, with
double the yield. Mutual help and the spread of knowledge; more men and
women on the land--this is the value of the agricultural co-operative
movement, whose importance to this country it is impossible to
over-estimate.