between organised communities of
farmers and the trade, it will be seen that the organised combination of
farmers will simplify the whole commerce of those countries where it is
adopted, and thus benefit alike the farmer and the trader.

This truth will be easily realised if we consider for a moment the
system of distribution which the food demand of the modern market has
evolved. Agricultural produce finds its chief market in the great
cities. Their populations must have their food so sent in that it can
be rapidly distributed; and this requires that the consignments must be
delivered regularly, in large quantities, and of such uniform quality
that a sample will give a correct indication of the whole. These three
conditions are essential to rapid distribution, but their fulfilment is
not within the power of isolated farmers, however large their
operations. It is an open question whether farmers should themselves
undertake the distribution of their produce through agencies of their
own, thus saving the wholesale and possibly the retail profits. But
unquestionably they should be so well organised at home that they can
take this course if they are unfairly treated by organised middlemen.
The Danish farmers, whose highly organised system of distribution has
made them the chief competitors of the Irish farmers, have established
(with Government assistance which their organisation enabled them to
secure) very efficient machinery for distributing their butter, bacon
and eggs in the British markets. Other European farming communities are
becoming equally well organised, and similarly control the marketing of
their produce. But where, as in America and the United Kingdom, the town
dominates the country, and the machinery of distribution is owned by the
business men of the towns, it is worked by them in their own interests.
They naturally take from the unorganised producers as well as from the
unorganised consumers the full business value of the service they
render. With the growing cost of living, this has become a matter of
urgent importance to the towns. In the cheaper-food campaign which began
in the late fall of 1909, voices are heard calling the farmers to
account for their uneconomical methods, while here and there
organisations of consumers are endeavouring to solve the problem to
their own satisfaction by acquiring land and raising upon it the produce
which they require.

In the face of such facts it is not easy to ac