remedies, but we are practical business men and don't believe in neglecting present opportunities on account of past grievances and some present political disabilities.

MR. PLUNKETT: That is the right way to approach the Irish problem, and I am delighted to find how general this attitude of mind is becoming among all those who still take an interest in the Irish question in this country. So far, our conversation has brought out the main facts of the situation which we are discussing. What we have to deal with is the problem of rural life in a country whose physical conditions render agriculture the main dependence of the people. My ranch friend asked, just now, what the Irish farmers were kicking about when so much had been done for them by legislation. Unhappily, about the time when their position was being so enormously improved by the legislative changes which I have described, a new trouble overtook them in the form of agricultural depression, resulting from the opening up of vast tracts of virgin soil in the Western Hemisphere and in Australia, and also from the extraordinary development which has taken place in rapid and cheap transportation, as well as in processes of food-preservation.

PROFESSOR: Are not these causes of the Irish farmers' difficulties likely rather to increase than to diminish? It is not an extravagant forecast of likely developments in this direction to look forward to a time when it will make little difference in the cost of perishable commodities for consumption as food where they are produced, or indeed when they were produced, so cheaply will they be carried and so efficiently will their freshness be preserved.

MR. PLUNKETT: Well, of course, things are moving in that direction, but the advantage of nearness to market will never, I think, be altogether eliminated. That much protection, even in free-trade England, the home producer will for a long time enjoy. The public taste is becoming much more fastidious, and will detect the difference between a peach, a pat of butter, or even a mutton chop, which has traveled half round the world and similar articles which have been produced only a few hours away. Moreover, your consumption in this country may increase as rapidly as your production, especially in the case of live stock,-though I admit that there is an immense margin of possible improvement in the agricultural methods of the richest agricultural sections in the United States involving enormously increased potential output from the land. Most of the farming I know in the West is distinctly wasteful.

RANCHMAN: It looks pretty rocky, then, for

the Irish farmers who are foolish enough not to emigrate to this country. I don't take much stock in them myself, but I'd sooner have them than the Chinese, or even the Italians.

SENATOR: You bet! I have no use for the Italians. You always have to get an Irishman to round them up, as you'd say, when there is any political work to be done.

JUDGE: But I don't think Mr. Plunkett is much interested in the Irish as politicians out here. He was telling us about them as workers at home.

MR. PLUNKETT: Yes, perhaps the Senator would allow me to continue my remarks upon the way in which my countrymen are endeavoring to solve their rural problems in Ireland, and to postpone to some other occasion a discussion upon the assistance they are giving you to solve your municipal problems out here. SENATOR Cæsar's ghost!

:

PROFESSOR: Yes, we know something about agricultural combination in this country. No doubt you have heard of the Grange movement, which really is a business organization of farmers for the purpose of jointly purchasing farmers' requirements, the joint ownership of costly agricultural machinery, the joint sale of produce, and so forth.

MR. PLUNKETT: I have made some inquiries about this movement, but I could not discover that it had exercised any very important influence upon American agriculture. I believe, however, it has exercised some political influence, and has to some extent molded legislation in favor of its followers. But I have gained the impression that they have lost in economic efficiency what they may have gained by going into politics.

THE GRANGE MOVEMENT IN IRELAND. MR. PLUNKETT: The economic situation is a grave and difficult one, but in so far as this intensifying trouble I am speaking about,―agricultural depression consequent upon foreign competition,-is concerned, all the other countries in Europe are similarly situated. They have, however, changed their methods in two distinct ways to meet the altered circumstances, and they have done it with such success that they are in many cases better off than before this world-wide competition,-the opening of the world-market, I think the Professor would call it, came about. In the first place, they have completely changed their business methods; they have applied to farming those principles of combination which, under modern economic condi tions, have been found to be essential to the success of all other industries. They don't own

the land on the coöperative plan in these progressive European countries, but whenever and wherever it pays the farmers of a district to combine for any purpose connected with their business they organize themselves into associations to carry out those purposes.

:

SENATOR I think in Ireland anything like the Grange movement would concern itself very largely, and I am sure very effectively, with politics, and not make itself very conspicuous in business.

MR. PLUNKETT: Senator, you seem to know a good deal about my countrymen out here, but you are not quite up to date in your information about those who have remained at home. We have a Grange movement which is headed by a central society known as the Irish Agricultural Organization Society, composed of men of all creeds, classes, and politics, and existing for the sole purpose of teaching the farmers to organize their industry in all its branches upon these business principles which we are discussing. The Organization Society is heading a great movement which remains absolutely non-political and is producing the best possible business results. The movement has only been in existence for a dozen years, and yet, at the moment, the associations which are organized under it embrace roughly some seventy-five thousand farmers, who are shareholding members of over seven hundred associations. As the shareholders are, generally speaking, heads of families, it is safe to say that over three hundred thousand persons, or about one-sixth of the entire farming community, have thus become interested in the movement, and it is going ahead at an unprecedented and rapidly accelerating rate of progress. They build and equip creameries; everything that the farmer wants in his industry they purchase in a large wholesale way, and pay particular attention to quality as well as to price. Some of the associations, called agricultural banks, aim at getting cheap credit for farmers through mutual security, thus enabling them to add to the working capital available for sound practical development of their industry.

Many of these bodies develop home industries, which employ the female members of the family chiefly, such as lace-making, crochet, embroidery, hosiery, rug-making, shirt-making, and so forth. But all the associations, whatever their purpose, are organized on the coöperative plan, the capital being provided by the members, and the management being in the hands of a committee democratically selected from among themselves. The movement is a severely self-help movement. No financial or other responsibility is taken by the parent society, which limits itself strictly to

giving advice as to the principles upon which these business combinations can be made to work efficiently and harmoniously, and so to be per

manent.

LAWYER: What is the legal status of these associations? Are they merely partnerships or corporations? They must be one or the other, and in the former case their liability would be unlimited.

COOPERATIVE CREAMERIES.

MR. PLUNKETT: They are corporations, mostly registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act, which provides for limited liability, and they differ mainly from the ordinary jointstock companies incorporated under the Companies Act in that the capital is elastic and can, without expense, be altered by resolution as the interest of the members dictates, and almost any arrangement as to the division of profits may be agreed upon. This is held to be essential in companies of this kind, because they are not primarily intended as investments for capital, but as associations of individuals for mutual advantage. The arrangement usually is that interest upon capital at the rate of 5 per cent. is the first charge upon the net profits, and that the remainder of the profits is divided among the farmers and the employees of the society upon an equitable basis which seeks to allocate to each contributor to the profits a share in proportion to his contribution to them, so far as this can be ascertained. For instance, in the case of a cooperative creamery, the milk is paid for at the price a capitalist would give at a proprietary creamery. But the capitalist would make more than 5 per cent. on his capital. Therefore, if the farmers manage their undertaking as well as he would, and they ought to manage it better, -they can pay 5 per cent. on their capital and have a surplus to divide among the suppliers of milk and the workers in the factory,-so many cents on the dollar's worth of milk supplied and on the dollar of wages earned.

MUTUAL LOAN ASSOCIATIONS.

PROFESSOR: I suppose the object of this arrangement is to harmonize the interests of all participants in the undertaking, and so produce the best results.

MR. PLUNKETT: Exactly, and so it works out in practice. The same principle is observed in all the societies, excepting those known as agricultural banks, which are incorporated under the Friendly Societies Act. In these, the liability of the members for the debts of the association is unlimited. They are chiefly located in districts where the farmers are all so poor that

they have little tangible security to offer. They therefore pledge their joint and several personal security and raise a loan. Having thus created a capital, the association, through its committee, makes loans to the members, also upon the personal security of the borrower and two sureties. The peculiarity of the system is that loans are made only for productive purposes,—that is, purposes which, in the judgment of the committee, will enable the borrower to repay the loan out of its application. When this condition is satisfied, the loan is made for just as long a period as is required to enable the borrower to fulfill the purpose for which he borrowed. There is, Professor, a point in this which will interest you. Our farmers complain of the hard-and-fast term for which money is advanced to them, a term dictated by the usages and suitable to the requirements of trade and manufacture, but not to the conditions of agriculture. For instance, the farmer borrows money to put in his crop. It is absurd that he should have to repay it before he harvests the crop.

RANCHMAN: That interests me much more than it does the Professor. I always argue that way to those one-horse Wyoming banks. But they tumble to the racket, and I begin to wish I could transfer my business to Ireland.

Mr. Plunkett : The real basis of security is the capitalization of honesty and the industry of the community, and this is not as visionary an asset as it might appear, for, owing to one provision of the constitution, the unlimited liability, I mean, the members of the association take very good care not to admit to partnership any man who does not come up to the standard in these respects.

RANCHMAN: I like the capitalization of honesty and industry. I will try to capitalize mine when I go out West again.

MR. PLUNKETT: Well, if you could get the whole round-up to join you in the loan, and to approve the purposes to which it was to be applied, I dare say you could get a moderate amount on the security you were prepared to offer.

But, seriously, the scheme is, as I should have described it if you had not interposed your frivolous remarks, perfectly sound in actual operation. There are over one hundred of these agricultural banks in Ireland, and they have proved themselves to be perfectly solvent; indeed, their members never fail to repay their loans, and consequently the banks never fail to repay theirs.

JUDGE: I understood you to say there were two ways in which the Irish farmers, following, I think you said, the example of other European countries, were changing their methods in order

to meet the altered conditions. You have told us many things that they are doing, but they all seem to range themselves under the head of agricultural cooperation. It is, in effect, a reorganization of their business by applying to it the principle of combination. What was the other respect in which a change of methods is being effected? I should like to hear the whole story, if possible, before we have to join the ladies.

APPLIED SCIENCE IN FARMING.

MR. PLUNKETT: Well, I must be getting on to the second main point, where there is a great deal more to tell as to the effect of the self-help movement which I have so far described. But perhaps its most important effect is that it gave to the Irish farmer an education which made him realize for himself the next step which had to be taken. When competition with the whole world became a condition of agricultural production and distribution, the margin of profit became very narrow and only realizable by the application of science to farming in a manner and to a degree not before dreamed of. The provision of this education is, of course, the duty of the state. In all progressive countries, your own included, agricultural departments keep the farmers fully informed of all that it is necessary for them to know as to the discoveries of science in relation to their industry, the state of the markets for their produce, and all other matters of necessary and useful information.

They further pay special attention to the education of those who wish to devote themselves to agricultural pursuits. Nothing of this kind was done in the British Isles, and in Ireland no intelligent demand for such state assistance was heard until the influence of these organized selfhelp societies began to put pressure on the state to supplement the organized self-help of the people. Three years ago, we thus obtained,—I dare say you have heard the story of the Recess Committee; at any rate, I cannot tell it now,a new department of government which was to serve the people in the manner I have indicated. One result of its having arisen out of a popular movement was that its constitution followed its origin and was made more democratic than any other central government institution in the British Isles. It has a popularly elected council, which is a sort of business parliament, and two popularly constituted boards which to a large extent hold the purse-strings.

OTHER INDUSTRIES.

PROFESSOR: But, Mr. Plunkett, before you conclude this interesting survey, there is just one

point I should like to call your attention to. You have described, I think as lucidly as was possible in so short a space of time, the agricultural developments on the self-help side, which are certainly a revelation to us here, and you are going on to describe the functions of a department of agriculture which comes in with remarkable appropriateness, it would seem, after the resources of self-help have first prepared the way. I presume the department will perform the same functions as similar departments else. where, and with these most of us are more or less familiar. But, of course, agriculture, although in all countries the most important, and in Ireland by far the most important, industry, cannot by itself make a country very prosperous. Is nothing being done by those who are devoting themselves, as you seem to be, to economic and social work to develop some industries subsidiary to agriculture in the rural districts, and also to further develop the industries in the towns? For although, as you said, there is not much highly industrialized town life except in Belfast, still there are other towns scattered about the country where you might surely develop industry.

RANCHMAN: Galway, for instance.

MR. PLUNKETT: I will get on to your political record in Wyoming presently. But, yes, Professor, I was going to deal with that side of the new development in Ireland next. The full parliamentary title of the department which I was going to tell you about is "The Department of Agriculture and Other Industries and Technical Instruction in Ireland," and that indicates its scope and purpose. It happened that when the time was ripe for the legislation to which I have referred, Mr. Gerald Balfour was chief secretary, and taking up the industrial-development policy of his brother, formerly chief secretary and now premier, he carried it much further and gave it a popular character, as I have explained. Mr. Arthur Balfour was known for his light railways and Congested Districts Board, with which he did immense good to the poverty-stricken parts of the country. Mr. Gerald Balfour applied to the whole country treatment of another and much more advanced kind. He created this new department to take over all the necessary functions of government in relation to agriculture, sea and inland fisheries, and industries, and also gave it a liberal endowment further to develop these interests so far as the state can interfere in these matters in a free-trade country.

PROFESSOR: Oh, I see; your department will not, as might have been feared by laissez-faire purists, overdo that paternalism which kills in place of developing.

MR. PLUNKETT: Yes, we are convinced that we must work along distinctly economic lines, and that all our efforts should be directed to the continued stimulation of self-help, under competent central direction, rather than to the substitution of industries bonused by the state, and, to that extent, founded on an artificial basis.

PROFESSOR: I am delighted to hear that, because from my knowledge of foreign departments of agriculture, on which you tell us yours was largely molded, they take a too paternal view of their duties and responsibilities,-they work, you must remember, in an atmosphere of protection and bonuses, and I think your department, while copying many of their methods, might judiciously draw the economic line a little more sharply between doing too much and doing too little. In Ireland you have an opportunity of showing the right province for selfhelp and the due measure of state aid with which self-help ought to be supplemented.

RANCHMAN: When you and the Professor get through with your philosophy, could you give us an idea of what the department means to do to bring in dollars and cents to its expectant admirers?

MR. PLUNKETT: Very little, I am afraid, that would meet with your approval. You will be shocked to hear that we attach more importance to giving practical education than to anything else we can give to our farmers or workers.

RANCHMAN: You had more horse sense in the old days. I remember the professor of agriculture who came to your ranch, and your telling me that he was so full of philosophy he didn't know enough to live till morning.

MR. PLUNKETT : I now know that had I listened to all he told me upon the principles of stockbreeding, I wouldn't have made the idiotic blunders I did in bringing in those high-toned cows who turned up their toes in the winter of '85-'86. Our Irish farmers have more wisdom than I had then, and are getting to see the dollar value of science in stock-breeding, the use of fertilizers, the production of early vegetables and fruit, the perfecting of butter-making, and a hundred other things of the kind.

PROFESSOR: Don't you find the organized soci eties of farmers of use to the department in its educational work?

MR. PLUNKETT: Oh, certainly. I don't believe that any department of agriculture can do much good working through individual farmers, and there is no limit to the assistance they can give to well-organized associations. Indeed, at the present stage in these developments which I have been describing, I consider the work of the Irish

Agricultural Organization Society of more importance than that of the department. Unhappily, it is very difficult to get people to understand this, and consequently it is hard to get them to subscribe to this society. A good many wealthy Irish-Americans have supported it, and I doubt whether any of the generosity which has been shown by the exiles of Erin to those they have left behind has done one-tenth part as much good as these particular subscriptions.

SENATOR: Why shouldn't the same methods of agricultural organization be applied to the agricultural districts in the United States, which are suffering from the same kind of competition to which you have attributed the difficulties of the Irish farmers? For instance, some of the New England agricultural sections where the farms. are being abandoned, or some of the Southern States where they are teaching the colored population the principles of agriculture, but not, so far as I am aware, organizing the business as you are doing in Ireland?

MR. PLUNKETT: Well, of course, I can't give an opinion without knowing all the local conditions, but I do firmly believe in the almost in

variable applicability of the principle to modern farming.

[Here some ladies entered.]

JUDGE Gentlemen, I am afraid this is a deputation from the ladies. My dear, we have just settled the Irish question. We will be with you in a moment.

[The ladies leave.]

JUDGE Mr. Plunkett, on another occasion you must tell us more about this interesting new movement, especially on its industrial side.

MR. PLUNKETT: I shall look forward to another opportunity, and if things go on at the present rate, I shall have much more to tell you before long. I am sorry I could not tell you of our intentions for improving the industrial opportunities of the towns and developing industries subsidiary to agriculture in the rural districts. I hope you will all come and see things for yourselves, and in the Wild West to which I have now retired I can show my ranch friend some fat beeves which will be as great a revelation to him as our politics to the Senator, or our economics to the Professor. Now for the ladies, but I won't go first.

LESS than a quarter of a century ago, 99 per cent. of the world's financial and railway magnates were laughing at the supposed madness of a group of Canadian capitalists, backed by the government of the Dominion, who were undertaking the construction of a transcontinental railroad north of the Great Lakes, through the then unpeopled prairies of Canada's Northwest Territories and over the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific coast. Canadians themselves were so far from confident in the engineering and financial success of the project that the leaders of the great political party which to-day controls the reins of government bitterly opposed themselves to an undertaking which they regarded as far beyond the financial capacity of the country and bound to result in disaster to all concerned in it. The phenomenal success of the Canadian Pacific Railway is known of all men. Its common stock earns 6 per cent., and its value has hovered between 130 and 140 upon the New York Stock Exchange for several months past. In each of the two last years, notwithstanding the many locomotives and thousands of cars

which the company has added to its rolling stock, it has found itself badly beaten by the traffic of the Northwest Territories and the Province of Manitoba, and a great grain blockade has resulted. Everybody realizes that another Canadian transcontinental railway is loudly called for, and many are of the opinion that the next few years will witness the building of two or three such roads. Already the Canadian Northern Railway is pushing its way through the park lands of the Saskatchewan, to go by the path so strongly advocated by Milton and Cheadle, through the Yellow Head Pass to the Pacific. The Grand Trunk has become infected, and the Grand Trunk Pacific is to be built at once from North Bay or Gravenhurst. And now from the minister of railways come mutterings that lead to the inference that the government is itself thinking of carrying its own railway system westward, to add one more steel band from Atlantic to Pacific. It has well been said that no man can guess what this infection of progress will lead to.

The most promising of all the new projects