The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, September 8, 1919, Page 4

| { { { i " knew that extra capital would make Farmer Co-Operation in British Isles How the Irish Land Workers Eliminated the Profiteer—North and South of Erin Find Common Ground in Producers’ Interests ' BY PAUL FUSSELL ~JUST" as the workmen of Great co-operate in order to procure food and clothing more cheaply, so the farmers of the British Isles found it necessary to co- operate in order to produce with profit. We should not’ think that agricultural co-operation, like the co-operative stores, started in Britain, how- ever. It started in Denmark, and it is in Denmark and on the Continent that it has reached its high- est development. In each of the three main divisions of the British Isles—England, Scotland and Ireland—there is an Agricultural Organization society. The purpose of each society is the same: To encourage co-opera- tion among farmers and to give information to farmers’ societies. In themselves they do no trad- ing nor producing. Figures are often uninteresting. Yet it may mean something to an American farmer to know that there are 801 co-operative societies, with a total membership of 130,000 farmers, affiliated with the English society; and 161 co-operative so- cieties, with a total membership of 10,812 farmers, affiliated with the Scottish organization. It is in Ireland, however, that the co-operative movement among farmers has gained the greatest success. Affiliated with the Irish organization are 958 co- operative societies, with a total membership of 107,- 000 farmers. Since the whole field of co-operative farming in the British Isles is too long a story for a single article, let us confine our attention to the subject of agricultural co-operation in Ireland. At the very beginning it will be well to recall a few familiar facts. Ireland, more than any other country in the world, is an agricultural country. Three-fourths of the people are farmers, and most of the rest are small country traders who merely sell to the farming population. When farming is profitable, Ireland is prosperous; when farming is unprofitable, Ireland is poor. We should recall, also, that until recent years most of the farmers of Ireland have been only ten- ants. The land itself was owned by absentee land- lords, living in England. The British government made it possible for the Irish farmer to buy his land, but it forgot to tell him how he could farm it profitably. It did not tell him where to buy agricultural implements or how to dispose of his products. These things the farmers of Ireland found out for themselves. HOW TEMPLECRONE BEAT THE GOMBEEN MAN When the history of agricultural co-operation in Ireland is written a long chapter will be given to the story of Templecrone. Templecrone dies in the wildest and poorest part of Ireland, the country about Dungloe, in northwest Donegal. All that meets the traveler’s eye is a waste of brown bogs, gray rock and jagged boulders, scattered with small patches of green land. The average farmer owns only two acres of arable land. Before the co-operative movement came to Templecrone the two acres did not produce enough to satisfy the humble needs of the family, and each year the men would cross to Scotland and hire themselves out as farm laborers, and the women would go to Belfast and work in the linen factories. In Templecrone, as in so many other places in Ireland, the gombeen man was king. He was merchant, banker, prince. The gombeen man sold the farmer seed and fertilizer at the high- est price and bought the farmers’ produce at the lowest prices. He loaned money at the highest rates. To the gombeen men the farmer was in debt from the cradle to the | grave. They controlled not only the trade, but the politics. They intermarried only among them- selves, and formed a governing caste. Finally the farmers, in 1903, en- couraged by the Irish Agricultural Organization society, formed a co- operative bank. At first the bank was favored by the gombeen men. They the farmers more profitable and they thought that the extra profits would - Britain found it necessary to - : store moved to Dungloe. R e S T T B e A S e e e e P T o TR e, Sir Horace Plunkett, president of the Irish Agricul- tural Organization society, whose purpose it is to encourage co-operation among farmers of Ireland. line their own pockets. Three years later, however, an Agricultural Co-Operative society was started and the realm of the trading caste was invaded by a co-operative store. Only 14 men could be found who dared to challenge the gombeen monopoly, and they started their store, not in town, but in a small cabin hidden in the rocky hills six miles from Dung- loe. Here they sold the farmer sugar, flour and meal, and bought his eggs.. At once the farmers saw that the co-op. sold more cheaply than the gombeen men and bought for higher prices. Flour fell from 12 shillings to 9 a bag, and eggs went up 4 cents a dozen. z At once the gombeen men saw their supremacy threatened by the united action of 14 farmers. They withdrew from the co-op. bank and offered to buy - eggs at 4 cents more than the co-op. store was paying. The valiant 14 took the gombeen men at their word. They hired a van and canvassed the countryside for eggs. When their search was over theybrought them to the gombeen men and sold them for 8 cents a dozen more than the old price—4 cents a dozen more than the fair price. By this one move the farmers wiped out the financial reserve of the gombeen men and gained ‘a reserve for themselves. Since that first victory the progress of the Tem- plecrone society has been steady. In a year.the In 1906 its business amounted to only $2,500; in 1917 to $200,000. At this store, the Jargest in Dungloe, the farmer may get, at low prices, any thing he needs—seed, ferti- lizer or clothing. There he borrows money at the lowest rate of interest. There he sells his eggs at the highest possible prices. Without organization the farmers of Templecrone were held in financial slavery from generation to generation. By co-oper- ating they became, in a few years, prosperous, in- dependent citizens. And what has been done in Templecrone has been done in a thousand other places in many different , ways. In each locality the peculiar needs of the The article appearing on this page is the last in a series de- scribing the co-operative movement in Great Britain. Although the British worker has found that the co-operative movement has solved some of his difficulties, there was need for political action as well. He found he needed representation in the gov- ernment so that what he won through co-operation should not be lost to him through legislation. In subsequent articles Mr. Fussell will tell'of the- British Labor party and its growth and accomplishments. AL vicinity have been studied and society organized especially to meet these needs. One common form of the co-operative society is the co-operative creamery. Ireland was once the greatest butter-producing country in the world. Then its place was taken by Denmark, and to a lesser extent by Sweden, France and Canada. Irish butter was always good butter, but the middleman, buying first from one farmer and then from another, found that he could not get Irish butter of the uniform quality which the English market demanded. Ireland took a hint from Denmark in the organization of co-operative creameries and is now winning back her natural trade. ¢ HOW CO-OPERATIVE DAIRIES ARE FORMED IN IRELAND In localities where dairying is the chief form of farming the farmers subscribe~for shares of stock, generally taking a share worth about $5 for each cow in their barns. With this money and with addi- ticnal funds borrowed from a bank on the joint se- curity, the farmers establish their own creamery. Since many farmers co-operate, it is possible to purchase the best machinery and to adopt the cheapest methods. 8 The creamery buys the milk from the farmers at the highest possible price, paying according to weight and butter content. The creamery re- turns the separated milk and the buttermilk to the farmer, and sells the butter, now of uniform and reliable quality, in the English market. Profits, of course, go not to a middleman, but to the farmers themselves. Today there are 400 co-operative creameries operating in Ireland, with a total membership of 45,000 farmers, and they market each year butter, cheese and milk worth more than $20,000,000. In addition to the 400 creameries, there are 261 agricultural societies, with a total membership of 32,000. These societies buy farm machinery and rent it to their members at the lowest prices; reapers and binders, potato diggers, sprayers, manure spreaders, milking machines, shearing ma- chines, and other implements which are needed to make farming profitable, but which the individual farmer, cultivating only a few acres, could not af- ford to buy for his own exclusive use. These so- cieties also buy seed and fertilizer and other neces- sities and sell them at cost to their members, thus giving the farmer the benefit of wholesale prices and guaranteeing him good products. In-the days before the farmers discovered the benefits of co- operation they paid high prices for seed that often proved of low standard. Then there .are 171 credit societies, which lend money to the farmer at rates lower than those adopted by banks; 12 poultry societies, which pur- chase, pack and sell eggs and poultry and return _ the profits to their members; 16 flax societies, which mill and market flax and tow, and a host of other societies too numerous to mention, interested in milling, curing bacon and a hundred other enter- - prises. Thus Ireland has shown, through the Irish Agri- cultural Organization society and the co-operative societies that it- has fostered, that it can unite Catholics and Protestants, Sinn Fein and Ulster. It has shown that farming, unprofitable when each farmer buys at the mercy of a trader and sells at the mercy of a middleman, may be profitable when farmers co-operate and buy and sell for themselves. Although the co-operative movement has done much to free the British workers and farmers from the profiteers, the former, at_least, have found that co-operation alone can nof solve all their problems. They have leng realized that ‘unless they elected men to parliament who would represent them as workers, some of the larger questions which con- fronted them would be unsolved. They found that oply through political ac- tion could they hope to gain a greater measure of industrial democracy than they had. Even their trade unions could not wholly right conditions. Out of this realization has grown the British Labor party, now the sec- ond in power in parliament. The party itself is now urging a strong nationalization program. The story of the organization and the progress ' in subsequent articles. of the British Labor party will be told- -1 % - - L= ] d-< LN ~ Av‘ B S Y -~ Ty "3 - 7 i vl -y = NN/ I p ' o 2 - & i 3 Ny bl o | Fe 4 Bt ol T