CORRESPONDENCE.

THE FUTURE OF THE IRISH FARMER.

[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR.]

Sra,—We have got through with a revolution in Ireland. There have been bad incidents, but on the whole, as revolu- tions go, we have got off pretty cheap in the way of un- pleasantness. The ownership of the land, with all the pleasant power and patronage which goes with ownership, has passed from one class to another. There has been stiff fighting, shrewd blows given and taken, hot blood and much passion. We are not quite done with the fighting yet; but for the future there can scarcely be any more pitched battles. There may be guerilla warfare, chasing of bullocks by Mr. Ginnell, wranglings over the last penny in the price of the last acre, and the like. But the greater part of the land of Ireland is sold or the sale of it is agreed on. We cannot have the armies of tenant and landlord set in array against each other any more on the great scale. For a while the trumpeters of both sides, disliking the idea that their occupation is vanishing, will go on blowing blasts of oratory ; but the people who thrill responsive to their calls will get fewer. Many a fanfare is now no better than waste of good wind.

Meanwhile a new agrarian question is emerging, has to be argued out, perhaps fought over. It is all very well to obtain possession of land, but what is the farmer going to do with it now that he has got it ? Laud, like any other form of property, may be valuable or may be simply a nuisance to the owner. A traction engine, a flying machine, even, in spite of the proverb, a white elephant, are money-making things to the men who own them, if they know how to use them. They may be a source of loss and bankruptcy to the unfortunate owner who does not understand how to make the most of them. The case is just the same with a farm of land. The Irish farmer has got his farm, or shortly will get it. The world is before him, and the world's markets are open to him. Unfortunately for him, the world's markets are open to a. great many other people too, and he has to make up his mind,. like every one else engaged in trying to make money, to face competition. It is already painfully and abundantly obvious• that the old haphazard individualistic methods of business will land the Irish farmer in a state of chronic poverty and debt. How is be to meet the new conditions of his business ? This is the real agrarian problem now.

Sir Horace Plunkett, the solitary statesman who has emerged during the last twenty years from our crowd of politicians, saw that the organisation of the business side of agriculture had to be undertaken if Ireland was to be saved from economic. ruin. With a wonderful width of view, he grasped the fact that the rescuing of the farmer is not simply an Irish question, but one which presses upon every nation whose people are within reach of the industrial civilisation of great cities. The English rustic leaves the land for the towns.. The sons and daughters of the New England farmers do the same. In Ireland the people go further,—go out of Ireland altogether and are lost to the country. But the impulse which drives them is the same. Sir Horace Plunkett, being a: patriotic Irishman, has given himself to the solution of the problem in Ireland, with special regard to the peculiarities of the Irish situation. - He sees in the adoption of co-operative

methods of supply, distribution, and credit the possibility of economic salvation for the farmer.

• It would seem at first sight that everybody, whatever their opinions might be about Home-rule or the maintenance of the Union, would agree in thinking that a little prosperity could do no harm to the farmer. Unfortunately, the Parliamentary Nationalist Party took quite the opposite view. They professed to believe that the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, which explained the advantages of co-operation to the farmers, was a sort of Primrose League engaged really in seducing the unwary from the narrow way of Nationalism. I do not think they really believed this. I do not see how any one could believe it in the face of the fact that the co-operative movement received the 'support of extreme Nationalists like the adherents of the Sinn Fein Party,—men who are certainly in earnest about securing independence for Ireland, and are not precisely the kind of people to be taken in by a trans- parent trick. In reality the leaders of the Parliamentary Party denounced the co-operative movement because it rescued the farmer from the clutches of the provincial shop- keeper, and the provincial shopkeeper is the great supporter of the Nationalist M.P.

The shopkeeper in the country town occupies a peculiar position in the economic life of the country. He supplies the farmer with flour, American bacon, tea, artificial manure, and seed, all on credit. He purchases from the farmer eggs, butter, and potatoes, and the price is entered in his books against the farmer's debt. He lends the farmer money at unknown rates of interest. He supplies the farmer with the drink in which each bargain in buying or selling is sealed.

When the time comes he sells tickets to America to the f Armer's sons and daughters. As trader, usurer, publican, and emigration agent he makes a fourfold profit. His

customers are tied to him by their debts. He crowns his life of usefulness by posing as a public benefactor, the man who keeps the farmers going ; and occupies his leisure hours in nominating Members of Parliament to fight Ireland's battle on the floor of the House. This man will be hit by the spread of the co-operative movement, and, naturally enough, he uses all his power and influence against the Society which threatens him.

• So it looks as if we were to have another stand-up fight in Ireland, not this time tenant against landlord, but farmer against trader,—the farmer with Sir Horace Plunkett and the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society to guide him, the trader with a strong political party under his control. There ought not to be a fight, of course. It should be obvious enough to the politician that it is better to have prosperous farmers behind him than debt-swamped paupers. It ought to be obvious to the shopkeeper that his interests, the interests

of his proper trade, are bound up with those of the farmer ; that be cannot go on for ever getting money for himself by

beggaring his neighbour; and that the more a farmer makes by sane methods of business the more must go into the till of the shop at which he deals. But neither the politician nor the trader appears to be able to grasp these simple truths.

They are both, if we may judge from the tone of their organ, the Freeman's Journal, just as determined as ever to suppress

the co-operative movement. Fortunately, the commercial classes of the cities, the merchants of Dublin and Belfast, are likely to be more clear-sighted. The papers which represent

them, the Irish Times, the Belfast Newsletter, and the Northern Whig, have nothing but good to say about the vigorous new start which the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society is making.

If there is to be a battle, it will be fought out to the end by the friends of the co-operative movement. The tone of their Conference in Dublin, held just before Christmas, was bold and determined. It was evident that the representatives of the societies throughout the country had no intention whatever of allowing their work to die because the subsidy granted by the Department of Agriculture is being withdrawn. Sir Horace Plunkett was elected president of the Society, a position which he held before he accepted office at the head of the Department. He addressed the delegates in words which leave no doubt about his intentions. He does not want

to fight any political party. He wants to keep the Society over which he presides clear of politics altogether. But if his 'work is attacked and hindered, he is prepared to see the struggle through. Faced with the loss of financial help from

the Government, the Society, instead of grumbling and whining, has risen up and rejoiced that it is free of the bonds with which Government supervision bound its limbs. Its spirit is not that of beaten men, but rather of men who feel, after a period of cramped inactivity, free to stretch themselves and go forward joyfully.—I am, Sir, &c.,

GEORGE A. BIRMINGHAM.