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.
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