, the carpenter, the solitary artist, get trade
terms. The farmer, who is as much a manufacturer as the shipbuilder, or
the factory proprietor, is as much entitled to trade terms when he buys
the raw materials for his industry. His seeds, fertilizers, ploughs,
implements, cake, feeding-stuffs are the raw materials of his industry,
which he uses to produce wheat, beef, mutton, pork, or whatever else;
and, in my opinion, there should be no differentiation between the
farmer when he buys and any other kind of manufacturer. Is it any wonder
that agriculture decays in countries where the farmers are expected to
buy at retail prices and sell at wholesale prices? We must not, to save
any friction, sell the rights of farmers. The second proposition I lay
down is that this necessary organization work among the farmers must be
carried on by an organizing body which is entirely controlled by those
interested in agriculture--farmers and their friends. To ask the State
or a State Department to undertake this work is to ask a body influenced
and often controlled by powerful capitalists, and middle agencies which
it should be the aim of the organization to eliminate. The State can,
without obstruction from any quarter, give farmers a technical education
in the science of farming; but let it once interfere with business,
and a horde of angry interests set to work to hamper and limit by
every possible means and compromises on matters of principle, where no
compromise ought to be permitted, are almost inevitable.

A voluntary organizing body like the Irish Agricultural Organization
Society, which was the first to attempt the co-operative organization of
farmers in these islands, is the only kind of body which can pursue its
work fearlessly, unhampered by alien interests. The moment such a body
declares its aims, its declaration automatically separates the sheep
from the goats, and its enemies are outside and not inside. The
organizing body should be the heart and centre of the farmers' movement,
and if the heart has its allegiance divided, its work will be poor and
ineffectual, and very soon the farmers will fall away from it to follow
more single-hearted leaders. No trades union would admit representatives
of capitalist employers on its committee, and no organization of farmers
should allow alien or opposing interest on their councils to clog
the machine or betray the cause. This is the best advice I can give
reformers. It is the result