in a farming community could be brought to see that they
might advantageously substitute associated for isolated production or
distribution, they must be taught to form themselves into associations
in order to reap the anticipated advantages.

This brief statement of our general aims will furnish a rough idea of
the economic propaganda which we initiated, and if I give a few
illustrations of the practical application of the new principle to the
farming industry, I shall have done all that will be required to leave
on the reader's mind a true though perhaps an incomplete impression of
the character and scope of the self-help side of the new movement. I
shall first give a sketch of the unrecorded struggles of its pioneers,
because these struggles prove to those engaged in social and economic
work in Ireland that, in the wholly abnormal condition of our national
life, no project which is theoretically sound need be rejected because
everybody says it is impracticable. The work of the morrow will largely
consist of the impossible of to-day. If this adds to the difficulty, it
also adds to the fun.

When we arrived at the conclusion that the introduction of the principle
of agricultural co-operation was a vital necessity, the first practical
question which had to be decided was how the industrial army, which was
to do battle for Ireland's position in the world market, should be
organised and disciplined for the task. It is evident that before a body
of men who have never worked together can form a successful commercial
combination, they must be provided with a constitution and set of rules
and regulations for the conduct of their business. These must be so
skilfully contrived that they will harmonise all the interests involved.
And when an arrangement has been come to which is, not only in fact but
also obviously, equitable, it remains as part of the process of
organisation to teach the participants in the new project the meaning,
and to imbue them with the spirit, of the joint enterprise into which
they have been persuaded to enter with perhaps no very clear
understanding of all that is involved. There were in Ireland no
precedents to guide us and no examples to follow, but the co-operative
movement in England appeared to furnish most of the principles involved
and a perfect machinery for their application.[37] So Lord Monteagle and
Mr. R.A. Anderson, my first two associates in the New Movement, joined
me as regular attenda