y both principal and interest. He must enter into a
bond with two sureties for the repayment of the loan, and needless to
say the characters of both the borrower and his sureties are very
carefully considered. The period for which the loan is granted is
arranged to meet the needs of the case, as determined by the committee
after a full discussion with the borrower. Once the loan has been made,
it becomes the concern of every member of the association to see that
it is applied to the 'approved purpose'--as it is technically called.
What is more important is that all the borrower's fellow-members become
interested in his business and anxious for its success.

The fact that nearly three hundred of these societies are at work in
Ireland, and that, although their transactions are on a very modest
scale, the system is steadily growing both in the numbers of its
adherents and in the business transacted is, I think, a remarkable
testimony to the value of the cooperative system. The details I have
given illustrate the important distinction between cooperation, which
enables the farmer to do his business in a way that suits him, and the
urban form of combination, which is unsuited to his needs. The ordinary
banks lend money to agriculturists for a term (generally ninety days)
which has been fixed to suit the needs of town business. Thus, a farmer
borrowing money to sow a crop, or to purchase young cattle, is obliged
to repay his loan, in the first instance, before the crop is harvested,
and in the second, before the cattle mature and are marketable. Far more
important, however, than these not inconsiderable economic advantages
are the social benefits which are derived by bringing people together to
achieve in a very definite and practical way the aim of all cooperative
effort--self-help by mutual help.

Our cooperative movement, taken as a whole, is to-day represented by
nearly one thousand farmers' organisations, with an aggregate membership
of some one hundred thousand persons, mostly heads of families. Its
business turnover last year was twelve and a half million dollars. In
estimating the significance of these figures, American readers must not
'think in continents,' and must give more weight to the moral than to
the material achievement. As I have explained, the cooperative system
requires for its success the exercise of higher moral qualities than
does the joint stock company. Once a cooperative society becomes a
soulless