ll not be in conflict with each other, will not
nullify each other's efforts, but all will conspire together for
unity, so that none shall be forgotten or oppressed or left out of our
brotherhood? The policy I put forward is incomplete and imperfect, and
it must necessarily be so, being mainly the work of one mind, and to
complete it and perfect it there must be many minds and many workers
fired by the ideal. But I have indicated in some completeness how the
rural population could be co-operatively organized, federated together,
and how the urban population could be organized and brought into a
harmony of economic purpose with the folk of the country. Within the
limits of object these suggestions amount to a policy for the nation.

If the tragic condition of the world leaves us unstirred, if we draw
no lessons from it, if there is no fiery stirring of will in Ireland to
make it a better place to live in, then indeed we may lose hope for our
country. Let us remember the most scornful condemnation in Scripture was
not given to the evil but to the indifferent: "Because thou art neither
hot nor cold I will spew thee out of my mouth." Let us not be the
Laodiceans of Europe, listless and indifferent to human needs,
swallowing our whisky and our porter, stupefying our souls, while our
poor are sweated; letting the children of our cities die with more
carelessness about life than the people of any other European country,
with sectarian organization's crawling in secrecy like poisonous
serpents through the undergrowth of swamps and forests. The co-operative
movement is at least open and ideal in its aims and objects. It is
national and not sectional. It seeks the triumph of no section but the
unity of our people, where unity alone is possible. Our intransigents
and extremists of all parties are not hurt or wounded by their adhesion
to the co-operative ideal. We may make up our minds that the stubborn
Irish temperament will never be overcome, but it may be won, and the
movement which invites all parties and creeds into its ranks and gives
them the largest opportunities of working together and understanding
each other, gives also the largest hope of the gradual melting of old
bitterness into a common tolerance where what is best essentially wins;
for all true triumphs are triumphs not of force, but the conquest by a
superior beauty of what is less beautiful. We should aim at a society
where people will be at harmony in their econom