al order, and the children of the community would,
we may be certain, be instructed in everything necessary for the
intelligent conduct of the communal business. The spirit of rivalry
between one community and another, which exists today between
neighboring creameries, would excite the imagination of the members,
and the organized community would be as swift to act as the unorganized
community is slow to act. Intelligence would be organized as well
as business. The women would have their own associations, to promote
domestic economy, care of the sick and the children. The girls would
have their own industries of embroidery, crochet, lace, dress-making,
weaving, spinning, or whatever new industries the awakened intelligence
of women may devise and lay hold of as the peculiar labor of their
sex. The business of distribution of the produce and industries of the
community would be carried on by great federations, which would attend
to export and sale of the products of thousands of societies. Such
communities would be real social organisms. The individual would be free
to do as he willed, but he would find that communal activity would be
infinitely more profitable than individual activity. We would then
have a real democracy carrying on its own business, and bringing about
reforms without pleading to, or begging of, the State, or intriguing
with or imploring the aid of political middlemen to get this, that, or
the other done for them. They would be self-respecting, because they
would be self-helping above all things. The national councils and
meetings of national federations would finally become the real
Parliament of the nation; for wherever all the economic power is
centered, there also is centered all the political power. And no
politician would dare to interfere with the organized industry of a
nation.

There is nothing to prevent such communities being formed. They would
be a natural growth once the seed was planted. We see such communities
naturally growing up in Ireland, with perhaps a little stimulus from
outside from rural reformers and social enthusiasts. If this ideal of
the organized rural community is accepted there will be difficulties, of
course, and enemies to be encountered. The agricultural middleman is a
powerful person. He will rage furiously. He will organize all his forces
to keep the farmers in subjection, and to retain his peculiar functions
of fleecing the farmer as producer and the general public a