they threaten the better classes of their fellow-peasants. of the Coalition Government which should make even the The position is reported to be really serious; and King Fer- mandarins of Whitehall feel uncomfortable. dinand might be pardoned for suspecting that the Russian autocracy has more to do with this extraordinary advent of "Socialism" in Bulgaria than seems quite consonant with the traditions of an Orthodox and Conservative Empire.

It may be hoped and anticipated that General BadenPowell's appeal for an endowment fund of £250,000 for the Boy-Scout movement will meet with a generous and immediate response. The programme outlined by Sir Robert, for which the endowment is required, will, we imagine, meet with general approval, especially those portions of it which deal with the proposed development of Scouting in the slums of our great cities and with the suggested farm on Scout principles, where boys may acquire a practical knowledge that will be useful to them whether they remain at home or settle in one of the Overseas Dominions. Sir Robert's appeal for funds is heartily endorsed by the Duke of Connaught, the president of the movement, who in a letter to the General foretells "the generous and warm-hearted support of our fellow-countrymen." Donations may be made to the credit of the Boy Scouts Endowment Fund at the Bank of England, Barclay and Co., and the London County and Westminster Bank, and their respective branches, or may be sent direct to Sir Robert Baden-Powell at 116 Victoria Street, Westminster.

THE Bishop of London must regret that he essayed the perilous task of pacifying the suffragists. It will be remembered that a rumour was started to the effect that a suffragist incendiary, confined in Holloway Gaol, was Ingram sallied forth in quest of truth-always a perilous heard shrieking and moaning piteously, whereupon Dr. Holloway, and found the lady in question enjoying all the venture, especially if you happen to find it. He visited luxuries that prison can possibly afford, het ly complaint being that the cuisine did not suit her digestion. Happy to discover that the victim of man-made law against promiscuous arson was not being tortured, the Bishop then visited the Governor, when he discovered further that if the lady would only promise not to burn other people's property in future she would be released. Of course so unreasonable a request on the part of the Home Office could not be granted by a self-respecting suffragist, and there the matter ended. On emerging from Holloway and telling the unvarnished story of his adventure, Dr. Ingram, to his amazement, was covered with abuse for exploding a convenient myth. No doubt in future he will be a wiser if a sadder man.

We have received an appeal, signed by Consuelo Duchess of Marlborough and the Bishop of Oxford, on behalf of the National Anti-Sweating League, to whose energies must be ascribed the passing of the Trade Boards Act without dissent. Under this Act minimum wages have been fixed for such ill-paid women as the chainmakers of Cradley Heath, the lace-finishers of Nottingham, and the matchbox-makers and trousers-finishers of East London. The league is nonparty and is asking for subscriptions, to carry on its beneficent work, to the extent of £1,000 per annum. Gul-ficent Donations should be sent to Mr. J. J. Mallon, the secretary, 34 Mecklenburgh Square, W.C.

MR. J. W. GULLAND, M.P., Chief Liberal Scottish Whip, has been good enough to explain" his-shall we call it?"indiscretion" with regard to Mr. Munro's influence with the Government in the matter of money for harbours and naval bases. Needless to say the explanation is delightfully disingenuous. In the first place Mr. Gulland was misreported by a Wick Liberal paper, and he can only explain the mistake by supposing that the reporter was kind enough to "touch up" what he said about the Lord Advocate. It is so long ago, and he has been in Italy, that Mr. Gulland cannot remember what he said; but from his own knowledge of himself he is quite sure that all he said was free from impropriety. He thinks he must have remarked that the Lord Advocate had been a good local member, and that, with regard to Wick Harbour and other matters, he had attended most industriously to the affairs of his constituency. That is what Mr. Gulland thinks he must have said, but as his mind is a blank on the subject (he has been in Italy) he must forgive us if we are unable to accept his hypothetical version. Besides, as Mr. George would say, why should he, we, or anyone asperse the integrity, and perhaps blast the future, of a hard-working, trustworthy, and altogether noble reporter of a Wick Liberal paper?

WE have come in for much criticism on account of our

alleged Yankeephobe views, and for our insistence on the truth that the recent expansion of the Monroe Doctrine is sheer bluff. We may leave our justification to the record of history, but it may be interesting in this connection to publish the following extract from a letter a Californian correspondent has sent to us: "I read with keen interest your paper on 'Spreadeagleism,' and I ask one questionIs it not the fault of Europe, and England in particular, that the United States is so braggart and so offensive in her attitude to all peoples? You sent here a man called Bryce, who did his puny best to add more to the vanity of Americans by his nauseous praises and flatteries. Thank God he is gone! Then Europe has an idea that the United States is a military Power. Why, my dear Sir, there never was a bigger mistake. The United States will never, never fight any people who will fight back. She is scared half to death of Japan, and if Japan knew her own good she would give the United States a real good fright by threatening

war.

MR. GIBSON BOWLES is to be congratulated on the first issue of his Candid Quarterly. There is of course much in it relating to fiscal questions which to us is utterly wrongheaded and misleading. The opening articles however on the present position of the Crown and the absorption of autocratic powers by the Cabinet and the caucus redeem "Do you know why the United States has not interthese puerilities. For public speakers these articles will fered in Mexico-the real reason? Why, because she has prove of great assistance, by reason of the clear and succinct neither the men nor the arms. A silly story was spread manner in which they trace the insidious conspiracy of the in Indianapolis, Indiana, that Pedagogue Wilson was going Whig oligarchy, and later the Radical bosses, to undermine to fight, and that the militia was to be called out. Every the prerogatives, first of the sovereign, and then of the man jack in one company resigned, and the man who people's representatives. George I's ignorance of English uttered the report was punished severely in order to contributed more than any circumstance to break down restrain total desertion. Why, my dear Sir, Americans the close association between the King and the deliberations won't fight unless they know they can escape free of hurt. of the Cabinet, which from that date became a secret No man in the world is more careful of his carcass than assembly, without records of its proceedings, and with no an American. Fight! Bless you, they are not a nation individual responsibility for its decisions. Overshadowing of fighters, but of grafters, petty larceny thieves, and wholethe Cabinet is the party machine, with its vast resources sale robbers. If England growled gently at the United acquired, under the present Administration, by such dubious States there would be such a scurry to cover that it would and subterranean methods and expended by one official be pitiable. The United States fight? Yes, Puerto Rico without audit or account. The articles form an indictment or Nicaragua !

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The Outlook

Saturday, February 7, 1914.

THE GLASGOW MEETING.

albeit Liberal legislation, has proved no great success, and the Chancellor spent some time in indicating improvements which it is proposed to effect. There will, perhaps, be time to discuss these amendments when they are definitely brought forward and submitted to Parliament. A few of the suggested "reforms" seem capable of rather extensive abuse. As regards housing legislation the Chancellor had no further proposals to make than those which have already done duty in his English speeches. It was under this head that his audience must have felt some disappointment. St. Andrew's Hall no doubt contained a very large representation of the "Single Tax" brotherhood-that section of the intricately tessellated Liberal Party which threatens recalcitrancy unless the leaders become initiated into their own peculiar mysteries. So that when the orator, having alluded to the "land monopoly " in the towns, asked HAT professional entertainer, Mr. Lloyd Lloyd "What would do?" the answer came very George, having several times disappointed promptly," "Tax land values," Then Mr. Lloyd his admirers in Glasgow, finally made his George, having proclaimed that he was "really not appearance there on Wednesday evening. There is a shirker," proceeded to do something rather like an astonishing resemblance between one and another shirking. If it was not shirking, it was a specimen of the Chancellor's orations. We notice that one of rather ingenious equivocation. It is true the Liberal correspondent who provided a description of Chancellor earned "prolonged cheering" by the the Glasgow meeting spoke of Mr. Lloyd George remark that "the fourth thing you have got to do as "boldly thinking out his sentences as he spoke." is, you must make the land contribute to public exNothing could be farther from the truth. On those penditure on the basis of its real value." This is terms there might be some excuse for a good many one of those abstract propositions which sound so of the Chancellor's virulencies. We believe these reasonable and respectable as to receive a general crude demagogics, these réchauffés of “brandy and assent. But they are more easily formulated than broiled bones" adapted to the taste of Radical audi-applied, and Mr. Lloyd George said little or nothing ences, are all carefully pre-considered. A good deal about the method by which these vaporous promises of labour and research, for example, must have gone are to be condensed into visible fact. The Land Taxer to the revival of those rather remote and obscure is to be content with the assurance that the Governcircumstances in connection with the '45 Rebellion ment favour the principle of giving some relief to from which Mr. Lloyd George endeavoured to obtain buildings and improvements by raising at least a some mud to throw at the present youthful Duke of portion of the local rates from site values. But the Sutherland. The Chancellor is not a man without hot-gospellers are asked to be patient. Much may humour of a sort, and it is surprising he should not be expected from the report of a deputation which the be aware that the fun and meaning of this continual Glasgow Corporation is sending to British Columbia Duke-baiting have long since been exhausted. More- to study "one promising method" on the spot. over, the country, or the better elements in it, is That information will be available about the month getting rather weary of the "little lovings" of a of May. Then Then the Government seem to be party kind which fill so much of the political speeches of our days. "I have seen Tory Bills," said this modern pseudo-Gracchus, "that were too rotten to be patched up." We suppose all Liberal legislation has been plenarily inspired and all Liberal Bills are incapable of amendment. Again, we read with a rather tired feeling that "all the obsequious and feather-headed mocking-birds of the Tory Party rend the forest with their laughter." Remember that all these empurpled patches have been carefully rehearsed beforehand, if not actually set out in typewritten copy. Mr. Lloyd George, however nicely he may hit the taste of his immediate sectaries who fill his meetings, somewhat underestimates the intelligence of the country at large. He also miscalculates the period of valid currency possible to a particular set of jokes and a particular species of humour. And, as a quickly ejected interrupter reminded the Chancellor at the Glasgow meeting, in memory of recent and not wholly forgotten events, he cannot afford to take too high ground or to credit the Dukes with a monopoly of the desire to "make a bit " when, like other mortals, they get a chance.

From a political point of view the speech was not very interesting. The Scottish Small-Holdings Act,

gathering information, not before, but after, the emphatic, though theoretical, declarations of their policy. "We are securing a special valuation of certain towns, villages, and areas worked out, each and all of them schemes upon the basis of the valuation we have secured." "That," added the Chancellor, with an unfeeling fling at the land-taxing fanatics, "is worth a cartload of theory.'

Mr. Lloyd George, who was occasionally "interpellated" by a plaintive suffragette, once more bewailed the depopulation of our country districts. Nobody is apter at such jeremiads than the little prophet of Criccieth. And all he says is true, too true. A bold peasantry is indeed, like a "gold reserve," not much in evidence when things are going well, but fully appreciated when there is a run on the bank. The depletion of this reserve is, we quite agree, a danger not only to the United Kingdom, but to the Empire itself. The curious thing is that the Chancellor keeps on persistently saying nothing about the true constitutional source of this malady. He harps upon game laws, "the searching and merciless autocracy "of landlord and squire, and other things which may be right or wrong, but have really little to do with the great problem of rural and agri

cultural decline. The one great reason why millions furious at the suggestion that the King should withof acres have gone out of cultivation in this country, hold assent to the Home Rule Bill until after a why the economic value of English land has enor- General Election; though in this case the prerogative mously declined, and why our peasantry have flocked would secure an appeal to the people and be quite into the towns and overseas into the British democratic. Besides, this plan was tried with Natal Dominions, is that our fiscal system has exposed in 1907 and 1908, and an Indemnity Act was passed our island-grown produce to the unlimited competition after martial law had been proclaimed. As assent to of cheap imported supplies. That policy may be irre- this Act was refused Natal simply kept up the state of mediable, but it is practically the only reason why siege until the Crown gave way. It is very probable, Mr. Lloyd George and everybody else is bewailing too, that the Union Government have not been relying the sunken and deserted state of our shires and wholly on the general principle on which all Governvillages. Of course, the Liberals are estopped from ments, popular or otherwise, rely in self-defencedealing with the disease at its constitutional root. the principle of suspending laws in circumstances of The result is that they have to talk all round the sub-dire extremity. They have been acting partly under ject and propose partial and experimental remedies the Immigrants Regulation Act of last year. This will which can and will never effect the desired object.

SON

un

be matter for discussion in the debates on the Indemnity Bill in the Union Parliament. Under this Act the Natal Labour Party tried to force the Government into deporting Indian coolies. It was part of MARTIAL LAW AND LABOUR PARTIES. the endeavour of that body to exclude Asiatic labour OMETHING very much like Nemesis has over- from South Africa, but it now applies to whites; taken the Government and its allies the and possibly the deportation of the Labour men may Labour Party. They rushed through the South fall under its provisions. These Asiatics are just as Africa Act in 1909 recklessly, and despised the much subjects of the Empire as are the Labour counsels that warned them not to set up full repre- leaders themselves. Mr. Ramsay Macdonald desentative government prematurely. They had failed claimed at Glasgow about preferring such | to foil the policy of the Unionist Government in worthy States as do not tolerate the sedition of South Africa while they were in opposition. In trade unionism to be turned out of the Empire. revenge, as soon as they acquired power, they did But he and the rest of the British Labour Party have everything which the prudence of the members of the had nothing to say in defence of the liberty of Asiatic late Government advised them against in the then subjects of the Empire who have been persecuted circumstances of South Africa. How jubilant Liberal by the party's South African friends. At Glasgow and Labour men have been about the triumph of they made the fact quite patent, that no liberty Liberal principles and the infallible virtues of popular is palatable to them except the liberty of trade unions government! There remained nothing to say, we and Labour leaders to ride roughshod over every were assured, against Home Rule for Ireland after Government. Their efforts have been so successful this glorious success of Home Rule for South Africa. in subduing the Liberal Government here to their Yet within four years, after infinite troubles, besides purposes that they rage and rave when any other those which date from July last, the Constitution Government is outside their sphere of influence. of which they were the proud authors has been suspended and all law superseded by purely military force.

Broken down though the Liberal South African scheme has, as an Imperial settlement it provides the Government with an answer to the demands of the Labour Party for interference with the South African Government, in order to hinder it from suppressing the seditious Labour movement by martial law, one of the incidents of which is the deportation of the Syndicalist leaders. Nothing could be more abjectly feeble and absurd than the proceedings of the Glasgow Labour Conference. Mr. Ramsay Macdonald and Mr. Keir Hardie eagerly helped the Government to surrender Imperial control and establish full representative government in South Africa. Now they find that they have no power to influence matters in Parliament, and in their impotence they can do nothing but work off their bad temper on the unfortunate Lord Gladstone and try to make him the scapegoat for their own folly. Mr. Keir Hardie advises recourse to the sole expedient left-that the Indemnity Bill now before the Union Parliament shall not be assented to by be assented to by Lord Gladstone, and that the Bill shall be disallowed by the King. It is wonderful how such fierce democrats invoke the Royal authority to override a representative popular Government when it puts down trade unionists who make their trade unionism a pretext for revolution. Yet they are the same people who were

Worst of all, they are enraged knowing that it is their own blunder that gave to South Africans their Constitution. So eager were they to cut off all control of South African affairs by the Crown that a clause in the South Africa Act almost completely. prevents appeals from South Africa to the Privy Council. Liberal Government and Labour Party alike prepared a rod for their own backs, and the Labour Party is snarling at the Government because it has not the power of which Liberals and Labour men joined together to deprive it. The Government's answer to them is perfect: representative Governments cannot be interfered with. The Labour Party are knocked out with their own formula, and they are furious at this ease of the Government in finding good apologies for their masterly inactivity. Mr. Ramsay Macdonald is driven to admit that beyond raising a debate in the House of Commons little or nothing can be done. Everything, he told his hearers, depends on what is done in the South African Parliament. If the Union Parliament passes the Indemnity Bill all is over; and the Labour Party can do nothing in the British Parliament. If it does not, then actions can be brought against members of the South African Government for damages or punishment for their illegal proceedings. But, plainly, he has no expectation-nor has anyone else that the South African Parliament will not pass the Indemnity Bill. Hardly one of his old comfortable opinions is left him. He directs the thoughts of his co-Labourites

to the new and startling fact that even a citizen be shaping the future of our Empire. The meetings army-the toy once on a time of the Labour Party- within the past few weeks of the representative assemmay actually mobilise itself with alacrity against tyrannical trade unionism, planning and directing revolution. A citizen army, a conscript army, armament firms, and a strong navy are one and all just instruments of Capitalism.

It is a bitter cry that comes from Glasgow, and it marks the lowest stage of humiliation that the Labour Party has yet reached. Mr. Ramsay Macdonald finds no consolation in any prospect-with one exception. The South African trouble, he seems to speculate, may bring the Syndicalists into the fold of the Labour Party. From their hands the Parliamentary Party has suffered many things of late, and has been treated by them as an effete body not worth its Parliamentary bread and salt, or salaries. Now, he says with elation, "They are asking us to do something. They do not believe in the Labour Party policy; they do not believe in having men in the House of Commons or in political action; but no sooner do they get themselves into a hole than they turn to the Labour Party and ask them to put down a string so that they may be pulled out of it." Of course, Mr. Macdonald will be as fierce as you please in the House of Commons, but very self-satisfied that there is not much harm to be done to the Government. As for his helping the Syndicalists, he has proved quite clearly that he has absolutely no power to control the South African Government by anything he can do in Parliament here. Whether Syndicalism or Labour Party Parliamentarianism is reduced to the greater impotence is a moot point; but they are both out of court in these South African affairs.

W

THE EAST AND THE EMPIRE.

blies of the All-India Moslem League on the one hand, and the Indian National Congress, which is mainly a mirror of Hindu politics, afford additional arguments for a better acquaintance with the native leaders of India. In itself it is a circumstance which

deserves no ordinary notice that these assemblies received this year into their Presidential chairs, in both cases alike, members of the Moslem community. The sentiment of Indian unity is clearly on the march. The Nawab Syed Mohamed, representing the oldest Moslem race, took the chair of the Congress, which is mainly composed of delegates belonging to representative bodies professing the Hindu religion. Sir Ibrahim Raimtulla in the All-India Moslem League has been knighted by the British Crown. It is a gratifying indication that native Indian gentlemen. who deserve the confidence of their own people have also deserved the distinctions of the British Administration. When we read the Addresses of these two Presidents we find them dealing with the largest and gravest matters of Indian and Imperial interest; and it must be admitted that the utterances of such chosen leaders of the Indian community are well informed, judicious, statesmanlike, and full of that reasonable and sober loyalty to the British Crown which is the best guarantee both for the ability and the sincerity of the speaker. We feel that we are in the presence of Indian gentlemen capable of appreciating the events and the duties of public life in a manner no way inferior, we can assure our readers, to very distinguished members and leaders of political parties here in England, engaged in discussing the affairs of England. How closely these Indian statesmen have followed the course of politics and have noted the statements of English political leaders, can be more fully appreciated the more closely we study their careful and elaborate addresses.

E doubt very much if the leaders of printed opinion in this country are always right in We may mention that the President of the National thinking that the British public could not Congress did not fail to quote Lord Lansdowne's be got to take an interest in the acts and words of declaration in 1899 on the subject of the ill-treatment the leading personages of native race in our Indian of Indian settlers in the Transvaal by the Boer Empire. It seems a pity that distinguished Indian Government of the day. It is piquantly painful to noblemen and gentlemen, who concentrate in them- follow that quotation fourteen years afterwards and selves the respect and confidence of such vast masses to be asked to repeat that declaration of the eminent of our Indian fellow-subjects, and whose policy is a Conservative leader that "among the many misgreat deal more important to the Empire than a great deeds of the South African Republic I do not know many of our local luminaries whom we could name, that any fills me with more indignation than its treatare nevertheless either entirely unknown, or pos- ment of the Indian settlers." The Honourable Nawab sessed of the most shadowy existence, so far as the produced a natural sensation among his audience British public is concerned. Yet there are all sorts when he asked, as Lord Lansdowne asked in 1899, of French and German personages, totally indifferent "Is the Government of the Empire, so mighty and to the usual tenor of our national life, about whom irresistible in India, with its population of three the Press on occasion contrives to create quite an hundred millions, quite powerless to secure redress orgie of popularity. Foreign novelists and drama- at the hands of a small State in South Africa?" It tists, whose productions are certainly caviare to the must certainly lead to curious reflections when we general, sometimes appear in a perfect blaze of leader-realise that a few hundred thousands of white settlers writing on the occasion of some banquet or presenta- in South Africa should believe that they are able to tion. If the biographies of distinguished Indians inflict any indignity they please upon the members were better known in the Editor's room, it might be of a vast Empire of three hundred millions of Indians, found that the great public also took an interest in including many millions of most warlike races, and their life and work. The ignorance with regard to that this vast Indian Empire appears to derive no individuals extends of course to societies and social power-rather the contrary-from its British Governmovements. Although a hundred portents admonishment to protect its own ill-treated people. It is signifius that the time is past when we could look upon cant to note that among the suggestions at these great India as if it were inhabited by sets of chessmen or Indian Assemblies there was one for largely increascounters, we are still supplied with miserably inade-ing the participation of native Indians in the British quate information upon men and events which may Forces in India. A demand to throw open the rank

of British officer to military natives of India is in itself a remarkable illustration of the new developments of Indian thought and activity. It must be admitted that when England can see its way to calling on the immense reserves of military power now latent in so vast a population, something will have happened in Asia which must make even the most aggressive of European Powers take time for cautious meditation.

Yet it went deep into the burning question which lies at the root of all the unrest which is disturbing industry all over the world. The small amount of interest aroused suggests either that the educated public which reads the Times has not realised the gravity of the industrial position, or that it is unaware that what the Times proposed is one of the two possible methods of redressing the injustices of which "Labour" rightly or wrongly complains, the other being State Socialism.

If the agricultural co-operative movement had accomplished nothing else, it would have served a useful purpose in making the co-operative principle known to many whose attention might never have been drawn to the subject but for their connection with rural industry. And among such persons there are not a few, quite as conservative as the Times is supposed to be, who have become so enamoured off co-operation through seeing its results in the one industry to which it is essential that they would gladly go even farther than the Times and have the co-operative principle adopted everywhere and in every class of undertaking. But it is worth while to consider what has actually been proved with regard to co-operation, where well-informed opinions still differ as to its applicability, and what it has in practice succeeded in accomplishing.

The warmth of the declarations of loyalty expressed at the All-India Moslem Congress, especially as set forth in the Address of the President, Sir Ibrahim Raimtulla, are all the more weighty and remarkable in consequence of the reasons by which they were supported. India, it was said, is entitled to look forward to greater and greater achievements of national development. India ought to be fully capable of self-government. But it is an undoubted fact that the progress which has been already made in this direction is due to the guardianship and leadership of England. Without England there could have been none of the Indian progress which we see. It is the duty, accordingly, of every patriotic Indian, It is generally held that there are two sorts of co-operation. whether Hindu or Mussulman, to support that A few weeks ago I discussed in THE OUTLOOK the "conEnglish supremacy and guidance which are indis-sumers'" co-operation, which has been more highly developed in England than in any other country in the world. It is pensable to make a community, to do nothing to co-operation in the interests of the consumers, who in their weaken it, but to endeavour to fit India for an ever-corporate capacity employ others to maufacture and distriincreasing share in the power and benefit of British bute their requirements. The large variety of manurule. These are perfectly legitimate ambitions.facturing enterprises carried on by the Co-operative When united with devotion to British rule, as neces- Wholesale Society proves that this kind of co-operation, sary to India's safety and progress, they are a which I have placed first because it has gone farther than healthy and ennobling inspiration. The statesmen any other kind in this country, is in practice applicable to of England are bound to take notice of such a virile distribution and to a large number of productive industries. and promising development. It is only deplorable to The second form of co-operation is co-operation in proreflect that, while the Moslems of India were showing duction—that is, co-operation of the workers in any industry this friendly and loyal attitude towards England, the to produce and sell the fruits of their labour. The twoprofoundly mistaken policy of our Liberal Cabinet systems necessarily clash, and if the whole industry of the profoundly mistaken policy of our Liberal Cabinet world, or of the country, were organised on co-operative lines, has taken fresh steps to place itself on the side of the doubtless the competition between the two kinds of coenemies of the Ottoman Empire, and even to propose operation that have been mentioned would result in the armed co-operation in order to secure Greek aggres- elimination in the case of each particular industry of the sion in the Asiatic islands which are indispensable kind which proved to be less economic in working in that to the security of Turkey in peace and war. industry. I propose presently to discuss briefly what has been successfully accomplished by the two kinds of cooperation, and to show that neither has yet been completely tested. But in the first place I wish to point out that, though agricultural co-operation is usually classed as cooperation in production, it is in reality not quite the same thing as the co-operation in production which is applied in the case of a factory or a distributive agency controlled by the workers in such undertakings. It is in reality the individualism necessary to successful farming which both gives a peculiar character to agricultural co-operation and makes it essential to the efficient organisation of farmers. Experience shows that farming is best conducted by individuals, each controlling his own farm. It has often beer pointed out that it is merely in the subsidiary part of their industry, which we call the business side, that farmers need to work together. It is for this reason that co-operation is essential to them. They must combine to buy and sell and to carry on certain manufacturing processes which otherwise would slip out of their hands and over the line which divides. commerce from agriculture. They can only combine by the co-operative system, because any other system of combination facilitates encroachment on their frontiers by the commercial world. The farmer therefore merely co-operates in doing his business and in certain departments of manufacture, not in actual production; so that his combination is necessarily different from that recommended to the miners and coalporters, who, if they had taken the advice of the Times, would have been carrying on their industry co-operatively from its first processes to its final outlet at the consumer's cellar.

O

RURAL DEVELOPMENT.

THE "TIMES AND INDUSTRIAL CO-OPERATION.

By PATRICK PERTerras.

N January 23 a leading article appeared in the Times which surprised many readers, and was regarded by others as possibly marking an epoch in the history of industrial organisation. The coal-porters' strike, which is already half forgotten, was at the moment causing much anxiety. The Times advised the coal-porters to organise themselves as a co-operative society, to take into their own hands the distribution of coal throughout London, and to look forward to joining hands later on with the coal-miners all over the country with a view to making the production of coal, as well as its distribution, a co-operative undertaking owned and controlled by the manual workers in the industry. The Times was recommending Syndicalism in the coal industry. The London coal-porters held a meeting the next day and decided not to take the advice offered them. A writer in the Daily Mail then seemed to suggest as an explanation of the decision that the coal-porters' leaders were totally incapable of organising even such a simple type of co-operative society as that which would be needed for the work of distribution. I do not think the explanation is the

correct one.

The Times article was followed by little correspondence.