FARMING CO-OPERATION IN IRELAND.
IT is reported of the late Lord Beaconsfield when Chancellor of the Exchequer that, at the approach of the time when he would have to determine on his first Budget, careful summaries of the accounts of the various Departments of State were, according to custom, placed on his desk as materials for Budget-making—and pushed aside. Days passed by, and the heads of Departments, anxious for guidance in the coming year, applied to the Chancellor's private secretary. He advised them to take, their summaries back and reduce them to the smallest possible proportions. This was done, and the minimised summaries were again placed on the Chancellor's desk,. only to be again pushed aside, this time with ,a note: "If I am to be pestered with a mass of unintelligible figures, I shall have to resign office." Finally, the financial officers of the various Departments were invited to meet the Chancellor on a particular evening. He made them tell him just what he wanted, often knocking, so to speak, two heads together like flint and steel, so as to get out the flash of light he required, and the result was a Budget speech in which the Chancellor's apparent mastery of the subject astonished most of all those who were in the secret of his ignorance of it only a night or two before.
If summaries were wearisome to Lord Beaconsfield,
fortiori summaries contained in Blue-books are weari- some to the general reader (the writer, whose sorrowful fate in past years it has been to compile more than one such volume, must candidly admit the fact). Yet even as a dull-looking flint contains within itself a potency of light which may illuminate a city, so a mere appendix to a Blue-book full of nothing but names and figures may vividly illustrate the progress of a country. Such a Blue- book is the lately issued "Part 13, Industrial and Provi- dent Societies," of the Reports of the Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies for 1905. The tables at the end of this volume (p. 232), giving the total number of societies making returns, show of themselves the striking fact that in respect of purely productive Co-operation Ireland out- strips in point of number the whole of Great Britain,—the Irish productive societies amounting to a hundred and fifty-four, as against a hundred and twenty-two for England and Wales, and three for Scotland ; the number of societies combining production and distribution being, on the other hand, smaller in Ireland than in either of the sister-countries.
But it is when we look at the lists of societies as given county by county that we best realise the development of agricultural Co-operation in Ireland. Take Antrim, which heads the list. Though including the second largest town in Ireland. Belfast, of its twenty-four societies, three-fourths are either agricultural or connected with agriculture,— viz., eleven "agricultural" or "agricultural and dairy," four " poultry," one " flour " society. In Armagh, out of twenty-one societies, twelve are " agricultural " or "agri- cultural and dairy," two are "creameries," one is a " bee- keepers' " society. In Cork, out of forty societies, with the exception of a "lace society," a "gardening industries society," a "Co-operative store," and a "Co-operative society" not otherwise described, all the rest are connected with agriculture, being generally described as "agricultural and dairy," " dairy " simply or "poultry," with two "beekeepers" societies, a "creamery," and a "creameries federation." In Dublin County itself, the only county which has not a preponderance of " societies " connected with the land, out of eighteen societies we still find an "agricultural" and an "agricultural wholesale society," —the gales of the latter reaching for the year no less than «54,249, and being only surpassed by the "Irish Co-opera- tive Agency," of Limerick, whose sales amounted for the year to £166,126. This would be a. high figure, though one often exceeded in England or Scotland. The beekeepers' societies, it may be observed (which, indeed, are only indirectly connected with agriculture), are confined to Ireland,—though homage is paid by one or two British "Busy Bee" societies to the co-operative habits of the insect itself. Nor is this indeed all. The figures hitherto quoted have been from the list (1) of "societies for carrying on industries and trades." A list (2) of" societies for carrying on businesses" (it seems difficult to distinguish the two classes) contains nine additional societies (or if we add an "Irish Bee Journal," ten) connected by their names with agriculture, including an Irish organisation society, with nine hundred and fourteen members, and whose receipts and expenditure amount each to between £3,000 and .24,000.
If we go back seven years to the corresponding Report of the Chief Registrar for 1898, the rapid development of agricultural Co-operation in Ireland becomes simply amazing. Antrim had then only ten societies against its present twenty.four, of which only four apparently were connected with agriculture, against its present sixteen ; Armagh four, one only agricultural, against its present twenty-one, of which fifteen are connected with agriculture; Cork, twenty-three against the imesent forty, all but four indeed (as now) connected with the land. In Dublin County, remarkable to say, there does not appear on the list of 1898 any society connected by name with agriculture. But if we collate the two lists, the noteworthy fact comes out that a society No. 182, figuring in 1890 as the "Irish Co-operative Wholesale Society," has become by 1905 the "Irish ,Agricultural Wholesale Society,"—a change of name which of itself speaks volumes as to the develop- ment of agricultural Co-operation in the seven years. And that development is also shown by the increase in the number of members of the Irish Agricultural Wholesale (each member a society) from sixty-eight to a hundred and nineteen, and of its sales from £40,006 to £54,249, though the latter figure is a puny one compared to that of a Limerick society, seemingly of a similar character, the "Irish Co-operative Agency," whose sales were £166,126 in 1905, for a membership of forty-eight only, evidently all societies like those composing the "Wholesale." But the Limerick- "Agency," though showing a good increase of sales during the seven years (from £133,984 in 1898 to £166,126 in 1905), had only one member more in 1905 (forty-eight instead of forty-seven), showing that it is now little more than a close corporation.
The development of Irish agricultural Co-operation is comparatively recent. The oldest of such societies on the latest list is the "Finn Valley Co-operative Agricultural and Dairy," established at Killygordon, Donegal, in 1889, and coesequently sixteen years old at the date of the Report. The vast majority only date from the present century, so I list, striking as the growth of Co-operation in Ireland has balm within the last few years, it would be rash as yet to trust absolutely in its continuance. And, indeed, if out of fifty-four societies registered in Ireland in 190.5, no less than forty-four were connected with agriculture (including " poultry " societies, "creameries," two " bacon" or " bacon-curing " factories, and a " threshing " society,
not to speak of an "Irish Bee Journal society" at Clooncahir, in Leitrim), the number of similar societies dissolved, or the registry of which was cancelled during the year (including in the number several " poultry " and " beekeepers' " societies, but not reckoning an " egg- exporters' " society), was much greater, amounting to no less than sixty, as against four only in 1898. But in nothing as much as in Co-operation can a failure be termed a part success. Its causes cannot be kept secret; they are blurted out, angrily discussed, remorselessly dissected, so that every lesson which the failure can convey is, so to speak, squeezed out of it. And what is true of Co-operation generally is no doubt especially so of Irish Co-operation, for there is no keener critic of failure than an Irishman, however sanguine he may have been of success at the start,—probably, indeed, all the more keen in proportion to his disappointment,
There is, moreover, another feature in Irish Co-operation, which would seem to be closely connected with the develop- ment of 'Irish agriculture, the number of Co-operative "home industries" societies. No such title occurs in any part of Great Britain. Of such societies there are thirty, besides an "industries society," which, indeed, made no return. Home industries, no doubt, in them- selves represent only the first stage of industrial development. But the combination of them in societies represents a second stage, and is pretty sure to be followed by their concentration in factories, a result which the abundance of water-power in Ireland will greatly promote. It begins to seem no more impossible that Ireland may some day become a manufacturing country, under conditions more favourable to human health than those which prevail in our own manufacturing districts.
But without speculating on such a development, the results published by the Chief Registrar appear to show that Co-operation as applied to agriculture has made for itself a wider field in Ireland than in any other European country, excepting Denmark, although ' the national character of the Irishman and the Dane is widely different. The promise for Ireland's future contained in such a fact is incalculable.
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