rs, harrows, and many
other implements of tillage. It is an immense industry and yet to be
co-operatively exploited. In the towns some progress has been made in
distribution. But a nation depends upon its wealth producers and not
upon its consumers. Co-operators might double, treble, or quadruple the
distributive trade, and still occupy only a very secondary position in
national life unless they enter more largely upon production. We will
never make the co-operative idea the fundamental one in the civilization
of Ireland until we employ a very large part of the population in
production. Now we have at present, thanks to the energy of the pioneers
of agricultural co-operation, a new market opening in the country
for things which the townsman can produce. Does not this suggest
new productive urban enterprises? Does it not favor an evolution of
manufacturing industry, so that democratic control may finally replace
the autocratic control of the capitalist? The trades unions cannot
do this alone by following up any of their traditional policies. They
cannot go into trade on their own account with any guarantee of success
unless they are associated with agencies of distribution. But if
co-operators--urban and rural--through their federations invade more and
more the field of production they will draw to themselves the hearts and
hopes of the workers and idealists in the nation. People are really more
concerned about the making of an income than about the spending of it.
It is a necessity of our policy if it is to bring about the co-operative
commonwealth, that co-operators must adventure much more largely into
production than they have hitherto done.

Now let us see what we have come to. There is a country movement which
is not merely one for agricultural production. It is rapidly taking
up the distribution of goods. There is an urban movement not merely
concerned with distribution but entering upon production. They can be
brought into harmony if the same federations act for both branches of
the movement. The meeting-place of the two armies should be there.
If this policy is adopted there will gradually grow-up that unity of
purpose between country and urban workers which is the psychological
basis and necessary precedent for national action for the common good.
The policy of identity of interest must be real, and it can only be
real when the identity of interest is obvious, and it can only be made
obvious when the symbols of