The picture that it give of a vast and complex organism is clear and life-like. It is true that the present writer quite failed to understand, at the first time of reading, the account it gives of the Constitution of the Co-operative Union, but he is satisfied that the fault is not in the exposition, and is quite content to wait until that Constitution reformed into intelligibility.

Few of those who suffer from the characteristic 'ignorance' of the 'educated' classes are aware of the extent of the Consumers' Co-operative Movement. Let us go and shout in the ears of such persons the facts that in the year 1920, 1,379 co-operative stores, having a membership of over four-and-a half million persons, owned capital to the extent of over £86,000,000 and sold goods to the value of more than £254,000,000, and that in all this vast movement of goods and services the motive of private profit-making by the capitalist entrepreneur (which the educated classes still consider to be the mainspring of industry and commerce) played simply no part at all.

The 'slogan' of the Consumers' Co-operative Movement is 'production for use and not for profit'. We agree that the desire to make a maximum profit is, in its most obvious manifestations, ethically unsound and, for example, in the distribution of milk and other necessaries of life, is socially injurious, because the profit-maker frequently discovers that it is more profitable to sell poison than to sell milk, and there is no real safeguard. So far the case for consumers' control and the elimination of the profit-maker is unanswerable. But there are a great many essentially different things which the poverty of our language allows compendiously to be included in the common designation 'profit'. Some of these things are theoretically objectionable at all times, while in particular circumstances they may do no particular harm and it is convenient to tolerate them.

Other elements in profits are perfectly legitimate, both in theory and in practice. It is incredible that the authors of this book should not be aware of this distinction, and yet they speak as if there was something essentially disreputable in every form and circumstance of 'production for profit'.

"We cannot regard either the Co-operative Credit Societies or the Co-operative Creameries as anything but a form of the Capitalist System." This is not the wisdom of the practical statesman, but the folly of he doctrinaire. It is as if in a treatise on Zoology one should write "We cannot regard a cat as anything but a miniature tiger".

The co-operative creamery is just as likely to grow into a gigantic world monopoly like the Chicago Meat Trust as the cat is likely to become a tiger, and in the meanwhile it does enable the farmer to increase his 'profits', to the general advantage of the farmer and the community as a whole. For the profits of the ordinary farmer are mainly the wages, and, apart from war conditions, the very inadequate wages, which he and his family are enabled to obtain in return for their services to society. Do Mr. and Mrs. Webb seriously think that farmers, as a class, in these islands during the last generation have uniformly and continuously been extracting by way of 'profit' more than a 'fair day's wage for a fair day's work?'

Unless and until it becomes clear that farmers as a class are reaping the fruits of economic privilege, in other words, getting more than they give, to talk about their 'profit-making' as if there were anything discreditable about it is simply to darken counsel. Let us frankly face the fact that farmers -- at all events, Irish farmers -- are, for the most part, essentially workers, and moreover, workers who are none too sure of getting their wages, since they depend on the vagaries of nature and the fluctuations of markets.

It has been necessary to say this, in order to clear the ground for a consideration of the most serious defect the reader -- at all events, the Irish reader -- will find in this book. The writers discuss the relation between producer and consumer as if the only aspects of the problem were (a) the relation between the societies, Wholesale and Primary, and their respective employees, and (b) the relation between the Consumers' Co-operative Movement as a whole and the Trade Union Movement as a whole. They simply deny that the organised farmers of these islands have any place in the forces which are contributing to the establishment of the Co-operative Commonwealth.

However breathless this leaves one, might one suggest pace, Mr and Mrs Webb, that, Hibernically speaking, the chief weakness of the consumers' co-operative movement in England is the weakness of the agricultural movement in that country? What is wanted most of all in that country is a vigorous organisation of what is left of small scale agriculture, and a cordial understanding between the agricultural and the industrial co-operative movements.

However valuable the experiments of British consumers' societies may be in the ownership and management of farms, the rural problem in Great Britain is not going to be solved along those lines. Let the understanding begin by a frank recognition on the part of the townsman that the profits of the small farmer are merely his wages called by another name. Let the understanding go on by a common realisation that in the case of agriculture the conflict of interests between producer and consumer is theoretic and unimportant, whereas the interests they have in common are paramount to both.

Every improvement in the economic position of the urban wage-earner is likely to be reflected in an increased demand for the butter, meat, eggs, fruit and vegetables that the countryman produces --- every increase in the 'profits' of small-scale agriculture means an extension of the home market for manufactured goods and a diminished dependence of industrial England on competitive sale in foreign markets as a means of keeping the urban population alive.

The economic position of urban workers is constantly being undermined by the drift of rural workers -- sons and daughters of small farmers -- to the towns. A prosperous and contented countryside will stop that drift. The elimination of parasitic middle-man interests is obviously advantageous to both. Nor need they quarrel about whether the organisation that distributes the goods should in theory be under producers' or consumers' control. The question is, perhaps, theoretically insoluble, but, in any given case, a right understanding of all the factors involved will probably lead to a solution satisfactory to both.

The consumer is interested in the supply of goods being plentiful and cheap. Very well. It may be shown that, as regards goods, for example, fruit and vegetables, for which the demand is elastic, an organisation under producers' control will, for purely economic reasons, lead to the result desired by the consumers.

A certain man sold 100 pounds of gooseberries in a certain shop for 6d. per pound. They were displayed for sale at 1 shilling per pound, and many of them rotted at that price. About the same quantity as was sold rotted on the bushes in the garden, because. the producer in question could not sell them even at 6 pence a pound. Thus the producer got £2 10s. for 100 pounds of gooseberries. If that shop had been under that producer's control, he would have marked the gooseberries at, say 8 pence per pound. In that case he would probably have sold 200 pounds of gooseberries to the shop at 6 pence per pound, thereby obtaining £5; and even if he had got rather less than 6 pence per pound, he would still have made rather more than £2 10s. for the whole supply, because he would have sold it all. No gooseberries would have rotted in the garden, and probably none would have rotted in the shop either. This illustration ought to make it clear as daylight that, under certain conditions, consumers, whether organised or not, have nothing to fear from producers' control.

So far from depreciating the social and ethical significance of agricultural co-operation, the intelligentsia of the Consumers' Movement ought to welcome every genuine co-operative development among 'profit-making' farmers; they ought to realise that their own movement, however magnificently successful in its own sphere, will fail in its ultimate task of emancipating the wage-earners, unless, in addition to the alliance of the Trade Union world and the loyal support of co-operative employees, it can secure a cordial understanding with the Agricultural Co-operative Movement that flourishes in Ireland and is getting under way in Great Britain.

The decadence of agriculture has long sapped the foundations of the economic position of the urban worker. A revival of agricultural prosperity, for which agricultural co-operation is a sine qua non, will enable the rural worker to strengthen, instead of undermining and corroding the economic foundations of the urban wage-earner.

Juxtaposed with the foregoing was a review by PS O'Hegarty of George O'Brien's Labour Organisation (Methuen) and LS Woolf's Socialism and Co-operation (Parsons). This gives some idea of the flavour of the discussions which were going on in 1922 about capitalism, socialism and co-operation world-wide, under the influence of the Bolshevik revolution and its apparent U-turn under the 'New Economic Programme' which was supportive of small-scale capitalist entrepreneurship. O'Hegarty seems in his review to be dismissive of Woolf as a doctrinaire co-operativist and favourable to O'Brien's support of large-scale capitalist industry, to which objective he sees, not without reason, some of the larger-scale producers' co-ops tending.

"It is an interesting, but irrelevant, fact that the sovereign is, by legal definition, a coin of about 123 grains of gold 11/12 fine. It might just as well have weighed 123 tons so far as the essential nature of money is concerned.

"The essential nature of money is to serve as a medium of exchange and a measure of value. All desirable things can be exchanged for money, and money is the magic word which, in its turn, procures all things. But things cannot exchange for money unless there is an agreement about the terms of the exchange -- the price. And therefore the prices at which things exchange for money automatically measure their value in terms of one another -- that is, they measure the ratio at which they do in fact (by the intervention of money) exchange for one another.

"The relative heights of mountains are just the same whether they are measured in metres or feet; and so with regard to money, the number of shillings conventionally attributed to the pound or the number of grains of gold to the sovereign makes no difference to the relative value of things -- which it is the business of money to measure.

"The supposed reality of money has exercised an evil hypnotic influence on the minds of men. To emphasise the essential unreality of that convenient instrument I suggest that the currency unit of the Irish Free State should be called the square root of -1!..".

(There is perhaps an implied pun here, recognisable to the elite: the symbol 'i' is used in mathematics for this concept, and I is for Ireland. RJ) JJ goes on:

"Mr Melrose has brought out these and other fundamental aspects of the monetary problem so well that I cannot do better than direct your readers to a perusal of his interesting and stimulating book.

"I agree in general with his remarks about the proper functions of bankers. Money deposited with the banks is the evidence of the existence of surplus wealth in the community. It is the business of banks to transfer the credits representing this surplus wealth to the temporary possession and use of borrowers who, by productively consuming some portion of this surplus, are able to bring into existence an even greater quantity of wealth -- wealth that otherwise could not have been produced.

"If they lend more money than what corresponds to the existing surplus, at existing price levels, they cause prices to rise -- in other words, inflation. But obviously their knowledge of the extent of this surplus will be incomplete unless the practice of hoarding is abandoned and everyone lodges his surplus money on deposit in the bank.

"Mr. Melrose has nothing but well-deserved scorn for the windy imaginings of the Douglas school. But I trust he will agree with them and me, that, although the banks cannot lend more wealth than the available surplus, the real security for the loan is the potential productive capacity of the borrower as an organiser of the services of labour. I hope he will some day examine what precisely is the effect on the proper use of the country's surplus wealth of the banker's ingrained habit of looking to documentary evidence of the possible property as the real security for a loan.

"I suspect that, even if a bank lends no more than the available surplus wealth, and even if it receives best gilt-edged security for the loan -- if the loan is swallowed up in some folly or frivolity th result is inflation, just the same as in the other case, because additional purchasing power has been created, but no additional wealth.

"I am not quite sure that he is right in supposing such a definite limit to the quantity of surplus wealth in existence at any given moment. There is an important distinction between total supply and "effective supply." Not all the wheat in existence last winter was in effective supply, as the Russians experienced to their cost. Some of it was said to be in use for firing boilers in the Middle West. If Governments or banks had created credits for the purchase of some of this wheat the effective supply would have automatically increased. The price might have risen a little, but no true inflation would have been caused.

"There is one practical conclusion that we may come to. It is all-important to distinguish between the genuine deposits that bankers receive -- generally on Deposit Receipt -- and the fictitious deposits that come into existence by the action of the banks in lending. Banks in Ireland should be compelled by law to show a clear distinction between these two items. The result will be interesting. "

Everyone appreciates this, and no one objects to the exchange of commodities amongst people of the same nation. But international trade is not always regarded as equally desirable, although the general reasoning which shows the advantage of trade between nations would also indicate the advisability of trade between inhabitants of different States. For if we look at the world as a whole, we find that the resources and aptitudes of different countries and different peoples are not the same. We cannot produce pepper or mustard or cocoa-nut oil in this country, and obviously if we want to use such products of tropical lands, we must export some of the products of our own land in exchange for them.

But even as between countries in the same latitude and longitude there are important differences in their natural resources. There is absolutely no coal in Holland or Denmark. There is a great deal of' coal and other mineral deposits in England and Germany. And there is little coal, and very little iron, in Ireland. And so an international trade between Ireland, Holland and Denmark on the one hand and England and:Germany on the other hand, in which agricultural produce is exchanged for coal and manufactured articles depending on coal -- such an international trade is inevitable, and is from every point of view desirable, since it enables the inhabitants of all the countries concerned to provide themselves with the requirements of life at a minimum cost.

Thus there is a prima facie case for universal free trade, because only under such conditions is it likely that the available labour power of every country will be applied to its available resources in such a way as to produce a given output at a minimum real cost. Now, without Free Trade, under a system of protection, it is probable that a country will not make the most economic use of its available labour power, some labour being attracted into artificially fostered industries, to the neglect of other industries which, under conditions of Free Trade, would have yielded a larger output.

Without Free Trade we cannot have the most effective distribution of available labour power to available resources. But even with Free Trade we may, for other reasons, have failed to distribute our labour power in the most effective manner. Thus Ireland has lived under a system of Free Trade for many years, and yet many remain undeveloped which ought to have been developed.

To mention only one or two, the raw material for the pottery, fireclay and glass industries exist in considerable quantity, and yet these industries in Ireland are almost non-existent. We find also rich land which is capable of yielding a considerable output scarcely cultivated at all, while quite small farms and land which is relatively unproductive are occupied by small farmers who find it impossible fully to employ the available labour of their families on such land, and exceedingly hard to get a living from it. But the remedy for such a state of affairs has nothing to do with Free Trade or Protection.

Now, as regards international trade in general, certain important misconceptions exist. People act and talk as if the great object of international trade should be to export everything and import nothing. But a country which acted in this way would be either a nation of lunatics, or else would be the victim of some extraordinary misfortune.

For to export more than is imported is a sure sign of a country being exploited by another country. For example, as a result of the indemnity imposed on Germany, in so far as it will be paid, Germany will have to export an enormously greater value than she imports; and Ireland, under the operation of excessive taxation during the nineteenth century, and under the operation of absentee landlordism, was normally in the habit of exporting a greater value than she imported. So that to desire that exports should reach a maximum and imports should be reduced to a minimum is a form of economic insanity.

The next misconception is that referred to in the phrase 'sending money out of the country'. It is generally thought that when we buy an article which is manufactured abroad, the money is permanently lost to the country; but this is nonsense. The truth is that every imported purchase from abroad gives rise to a demand for a corresponding export.

When we 'buy English machinery or English coal, or any other English product, the money passes from hand to hand, and finally comes back to us in the form of payment for Irish bacon or Irish stout or Irish cattle, or some other Irish product. In fact, the only way in which the foreigner can pay us for our exports is with the money he gets for selling goods to us. And thus we cannot reduce our imports without at the same time reducing our exports. For if we reduce our imports, the demand for our exports will diminish by the diminution in the purchasing power obtained by the foreigner in payment for what he sends to us.

Consequently we may as well face the fact, that if we manufacture what we formerly imported, we will diminish our exports as well as our imports. But as regards some commodities it may be an advantage, nevertheless, for us to produce thein at home instead of importing them from abroad. It will be an advantage if, after the new industryis started, it results in a more effective distribution of our available labour power to our available natural resources.

To illustrate, we will suppose that the export of 100 tons of Irish potatoes is balanced by the import from England. of 100 bicycles. By diverting the labour employed in producing 100 tons of potatoes, suppose we could produce, say 110 bicycles, and sell them for the same monev as the 100 English bicycles formerly fetched, there is a gain to the community as a whole. But if the labour diverted from potatoes to bicycles can only produce 90 bicycles for sale at the same money as 100 English bicycles formerly fetched, then there is a loss to the community as a whole.

Now the general effect of Protection is to substitute an artificial for a natural distribution of available labour to available resources. If foreign bicycles are made artificially dear, Irish labour and capital will be devoted more and more to the.production of bicycles. We will suppose that the tax is such that the price of 90 Irish bicycles equals the price of 100 English bicycles without the tax, or 90 English bicycles with the tax. If the import duty is at that, or any higher level, no English bicycles will come in. The result to the country at large.will be that the labour formerly employed in producing 100 tons of potatoes in exchange for 100 bicycles now produces 90 bicycles direct.

But if at the higher price the demand for bicycles in Ireland does not absorb the whole 90, then less than 90 will be manufactured and some of the labour formerly employed in growing potatoes will fail to find employment in manufacturing bicycles, and will, therefore, be out of a job altogether. In other words, Protection, though it increases employment in the favoured industries, may diminish employment in the country as a whole.

On the other hand, if by diverting the labour engaged in producing 100 tons of potatoes, 110 bicycles can be manufactured and sold at the same money as 100 imported English bicycles, then it is not necessary to resort to Protection in order to secure this result. It may be necessary to improve technical education in order to make the former agricultural worker a skilled mechanic. It may be necessary to extend and improve general education so as to increase the number of capable business leaders and organisers. It may be necessary to re-organise internal transport, to develop local sources of power, to increase the facilities for obtaining capital and credit; and these are proper objects for the care and attention of the National Government.

But to expect industrial development merely because the import of foreign manufactured articles has been made artificially dear is like the action of a gardener who, not knowing how to plant cabbages, should throw them on a hot-house floor and expect them, to grow although he had not planted them in the soil. We want our new industries to strike their roots deeply into the soil of Ireland, and to be able to survive, and even profit by the slings and arrows of international competition.

So far the general conclusion is that Protection is either unnecessary or undesirable -- unnecessary if it means the fostering of industries which are suited to the country and are quite capable of growing in the open air, undesirable if it means the protection of commodities the manufacture of which is not suited to the country, and in which we can never hope to excel the foreigner.

The staple industry of Ireland is, and is likely to remain, agriculture. Anything which injures agriculture is injurious to the country as a whole. By no possible reasoning can it be shown that Protection is likely to benefit agriculture, and any conceivable form of Protection is certain to injure agriculture.

Irish agriculture is mainly an export industry. That is to say, the home market of Irish agriculture is relatively small, compared to the foreign market. By no device known to political science can the action of a State protect the foreign market for its exports. It is quite beyond the power of the Free State to induce the English Government to put a tax on Danish butter or American beef imported into.England. All that the Government can do is to protect the home market, and when that is relatively slnall, such protection will be violently unpopular with all urban interests. The English cotton industry sells about two-thirds of its product abroad, and is, therefore, violently opposed to Protection.

We may take it, then, that the protection of the home market for Irish agriculture is not practical politics. It is possible that the protection of the Irish woollen and the Irish agricultural machinery manufacturing industries and the like may be asked for and obtained. A similar situation has existed in Canada, which, although mainly an agricultural country, has sought to force an unnatural industrial development in the towns by imposing a high protective tariff on the import of foreign manufactured articles. The consequence to the Canadian farmer is that he sells his produce in a free markets but he buys most of the requirements of life and industry in a protected market. And Canadian farmers, to a man, are violently opposed to the protective tariff.

To take an extreme case. We will suppose a protective tariff imposed on all foreign manufactured articles so high as effectively to keep out all such goods. In that case there would be a tendency for Irish labour and capital to be diverted to the Production of such articles fornerly imported.

There would be a corresponding diminution of the export of agricultural produce from Ireland. The effect on England would be that the labour formerly employed in supplying the Irish market with manufactured goods would be displaced; but owing to the shortage in the supply of agricultural produce, due to the fact that Ireland was no longer exporting such produce to England, there would be a demand for increased labour in agriculture in England. There would be thus a tendency for labour in England to be diverted to agriculture, and for labour in Ireland to be diverted to manufacturing industry.

This would almost certainly mean a less effective distribution of labour to available resources in Ireland and also in England, and thus would cause a diminution in the real incomes of both countries. If this would take place in the. extreme case we have supposed, a similar result, differing only in degree, would take place if, by protecting certain Irish industries we divert Irish labour to the production of commodities for which the country is not suited.

As regards new Irish industries for which the country is suited, I have already pointed out that such industries do not require protection in order to bring them into existence. But perhaps the chief objections to Protection are not economic, but political. If politicians were omniscient, and if they really had the interests of the country at heart, thev might conceivably use Protection as a means of giving support to a new industry which was well suited to the country, and as soon as it had reached a certain stage, would take it out of the hot-bed and allow it to grow in the open air.

This is the favourite argument for Protection. It is called the 'infant industry' argument. But in practice the infant strongly objects to being taken out of the hot-bed. By the time the question arises the infant is exceedingly vocal, and is able to produce 100 plausible arguments to prove that the country will be ruined unless it is for over protectecl from the cold winds of competition.

In other words, vested interests grow up around protected industries. These interests find their spokesmen in a democratically elected Parliament. They find no difficulty in identifying their own supposed interests with the general interest of the community. And although. the two are diametrically opposed, the representatives of other interests are not sufficiently alert or well-informed to resist the clamour and the intrigues of the interested infants.

This is what happens in the long run if an industry which is really infantile should happen to obtain protection. Even when the child is quite able to walk alone, it refuses to fling away the crutch which has hitherto supported it. But in practice it is not the infant industries that obtain protection, but the well-grown and quite successful industries which have their interested voters in the country, and their interested representatives in Parliament.

To take an example: the spinning of wool into woollen thread is relatively undeveloped in Ireland. But the weaving of woollen thread into cloth has obtained considerable development. A theoretical case might be made for putting a tax on the import of woollen thread, with a view to the encouragement of this infantile industry. But the weavers of woollen cloth, who have already developed a considerable business, would, naturally and rightly, oppose the imposition of a tariff which would have the effect of making the raw material they use more expensive than before, although the same people would probably welcome a tariff on foreign cloth. And so the infantile wool-spinning industry would be most unlikely to be protected, whereas the woollen cloth industry would have a much better chance.

The trouble is that what is a finished product at one stage of manufacture is the raw material at the next. The farmer might like a tax on the import of raw hides, but the tanner would certainly object to anything which made hides dearer, though he would, no doubt, appreciate a tax on the import of foreign leather. But the boot-maker would have a word to say about the wisdom of imposing a tax on raw leather, though he might not object to a tax on the import of foreign boots.

In practice, once Protection is introduced for one industry, the representatives of the various other kindred industries will clamour for 'protection' too. Thus we might have leather manufacturing interests, boot-making and hide-tanning interests competing with one another for tariffs on their respective products, or combining in a dishonest combination to fleece the consumer. After each of them had got his protective tariff, he would be no better off than before, but the country as a whole would be the loser.

This is what invariably goes on in all high Protectionist countries, and its disastrous effects on the morale of public life have to be experienced in order to be fully realised. At the present moment the various new States of Europe are ruining themselves and one another by the imposition of protective tariffs, and England, by her Safeguarding of Industries Act, has quite possibly done more to injure English commerce than the Germans were able to effect with their submarines.

The fact is that there is no royal road to industrial development, and to follow the Protectionist star is to follow a will-o'-the-wisp. But there are various things which, if accomplished, would facilitate industrial development. The great objection to Protection is that it is a great impediment to exchange, lessens the gain from international trade to all concerned, and causes a wrong distribution of labour power to available resources.

Inadequate transport facilities are a similar impediment to exchange. Looking at Ireland, we find that the arrangements for internal transport are inadequate, though the arrangements for the export of Irish produce are tolerable enough. For example, a quantity of lobsters caught off the coast of Donegal was shipped first of all to Aberdeen, from there to Billingsgate in London, from there to the Dublin fish market, and from there back to Derry, where they wore finally consumed.

Now the lack of facilities for landing and storing fish on the coast of Donegal, and for their transport in refrigerating railway waggons or motor trucks to Derry, has exactly the same effect as if there was a protective tariff imposed on the sale in Derry of fish caught off the coast of Donegal. I take this illustration from the Diil Commission's Report on the Irish fishing industry.

Now, if 'Protection is not a good thing in the trade of one country with another, the situation is certainly no better when a thing similar to Protection has the effect of imposing barriers to the trade of Co Donegal with Co Derry, or Co Cavan with Co Roscommon. The obvious thing to do is to improve the internal transport by road, railway and canal, and to co-ordinate these various forms of transport into a single system.

It is also desirable to develop local sources of power, especially water power; education in all its branches, and for all classes of the community, should be improved out of all recognition. If this is the policy of our new Government, industrial development in every part of Ireland will follow as a matter of course.

Such a policy will have the effect of increasing the production and circulation of wealth at home. It will cause no violent dislocation in our existing international trade, and will benefit ourselves without injuring others.

There is a large field of possible industrial development in Ireland in connection with small-scale village industries -- basket-making, furniture manufacture, and so on; in connection with more ambitious undertakings, like the establishment of a dead meat factory in Waterford, and in the various industries that arise from the working up of the bye-products of such larger industries.

But agriculture will remain our staple industry. It will remain the broad foundation on which all other industrial developments will be solidly and securely built. Agriculture, too, will benefit by the better organisation of transport, and by improvement in the general standard of education. These will be proper objects for Government activity.

But much will remain to be done by the farmers, acting, individually and co-operatively. For example, we lose millions every year by selling dirty and stale eggs. This enormous loss could be remedied by a little attention to the nests, and by a more, general realisation of the dishonesty, as well as the inex- pediency, of selling stale eggs for fresh ones.

With regard to Free Trade and Protection, a right policy on the part of the Government will depend on a right opinion among the people. It is well to know what Governments ought to do. It is still better to know.what we ourselves ought to do, and to do it.

The effect of the separation of Northern Ireland from the Irish Free State in 1922, upon the hitherto undivided co-operative movement in Ireland, was that the IA0S in Dublin found itself obliged to terminate the engagement with its staff employed in the northern branch office in Belfast. The reason for this was that the IA0S received a grant from Free State Government funds, and the Government would not allow any of it to be spent outside the Free State. With commendable promptitude Mr Harold Barbour launched the Ulster A0S to carry on the work in Northern Ireland, with Mr J Adams as Secretary. The Northern Government gave a grant on a pro rata basis, which, with the support of the societies and friends of the movement, enabled a good start to be made.

The number of co-operative societies in Northern Ireland in 1922 was 152; of these seventy-nine affiliated to the UA0S. As the area was pretty well covered by existing societies, the Organisation Society concentrated on the education of members and the promotion of improved business methods. The support of the societies, however, did not come up to expectations. After the second year, the Ministry of Agriculture withdrew the grant, and took Mr Adams over to their staff; the organisers employed by the society resigned. The position was carefully considered by the committee, and it was decided to carry on with a reduced staff and keep expenses as well as possible within the income.

Mr J Johnston was appointed Secretary, and Miss MC McVicker, Assistant Secretary. The societies rallied to the support of the central body, and funds were provided to carry on for a year, 1924. In proof of the useful work done, the contributions from the societies and friends of the movement still enable the UAOS to carry on. The small staff employed does not, however, admit of the promotion of other forms of co-operative organisation, such as the co-operative marketing of produce, which, nevertheless, is regarded as vital to the agriculture of Northern Ireland.

In view of the continued successful working of the UA0S, and of the evidence provided by the support of the societies that there is a real demand for this work, its supporters have invited the Ministry of Agriculture to reconsider their decision and renew the grant. The greater interest in co-operative agriculture which is finding practical expression by the Free State Government should also help to incline the Government of Northern Ireland toward a more sympathetic treatment of the movement in the six counties.

As it is, the co-operatively organised farmers, who constitute the majority of the farmers, feel they have not been fairly treated, in that the grant withdrawn from the UA0S, a non-political organisation, was given to the Ulster Farmers' Union, generally regarded as a political body. This was done, apparently, under the impression that the Union would be able to organise the marketing of agricultural products.

It did undertake the purchase and sale of farmers' produce and requirements, but ignored the advice of the Organisation Society -- namely, to adopt a co-operative policy and avail itself of the existing organised co-operative societies. Instead, it formed a joint stock cornpanv, the Farmers' Produce Company, which, after two years' trading, showed a loss of over £14,000. The company has since been converted into a co-operative society.

Nothing having been said about this change of policy, however, at a joint conference of the UFU and the UA0S, held under the chairmanship of the Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, prior to the change, in September, 1925, the committee of the UA0S felt they were not justified in taking any action regarding a proposed amalgarnation of the two bodies.

A special committee from each body was appointed to meet and discuss the possibility of closer working relations and joint action on questions of common interest, but no meeting of this joint committee has yet been held (March, 1926).

There is, in the opinion of Ulster co-operators, a great need for an extension of co-operative marketing. lt is, however, regarded as essential that there should be some form of binding rule or members' contracts in any marketing or manufacturing scheme, and the uncertainty of the legal standing of such rules or contracts has delayed progress in this direction.

A case was recently carried to the Court of Appeal by a newly organised co-operative city milk supply society, which had incorporated a five years' binding rule in its rules. The Court decided against the rule as being in restraint of trade, with the result that the newly formed society has had to go into liquidation. Before any further organisation is undertaken, it will be necessary for the Ministry of Agriculture to define a form of members'.contracts which will stand in law.

The production and marketing of creamery butter is the outstanding achievement of Ulster co-operation. The marketing of eggs is also slowly gaining ground. There will be large possibilities in organisation for the sale of potatoes and grain, and for bacon curing and the sale of cattle, when the Ministry of Agriculture is prepared to encourage the development of agricultural co-operation in Northern Ireland, at least to the extent it is being encouraged in England through a separate branch of the Ministry of Agriculture devoted to the furtherance of every form of co-operative effort amongst farmers, or on the broider lines of the Free State and IA0S policy, from the benefits of which, by political accident, Ulster farmers are excluded.

Volume I of the new series extends from Sept 15 1923 to March 8 1924. Authors include frequently AE, Aodh de Blacam and David Houston (on milk quality); occasionally Austin Clarke, Padraig Colum, Edmund Curtis, RM Fox (on the death of Lenin). There is on October 6 1923 a letter from James Douglas calling for Ireland's membership of the League of Nations on the same basis as the Commonwealth countries. There is a strong anti-treaty letter from Mary McSwiney. Joe Lemberger the Queens economist supports the Workers Educational Association (27/10/23). Arnold Marsh (16/02/24) writes on English as the mother-tongue.

Vol II, 15/03/24 - 15/09/25; regular contributors were AE, Curtis, de Blacam, Houston, Susan Mitchell and George O'Brien. On 5/04/24 Houston reports on the setting up of a laboratory for dairy bacteriology, in Plunkett House. He also has articles on the National Brand for Export Butter, and on the identification of sources of contamination, mostly in the cooler. Vol III 13/09/24 - 7/03/25 is dominated by AE and George O'Brien; there is a bog increase in reviews.