ir milk. And I dislike the little groups who meet a couple of times
a year and call themselves co-operators because they have got their
fertilizers more cheaply, and have done nothing else. Why, the village
gombeen man has done more than that! He has at least brought most of
the necessaries of life there by his activities; and I say if we
co-operators do not aim at doing more than the Irish Scribes and
Pharisees we shall have little to be proud of. A poet, interpreting the
words of Christ to His followers, who had scorned the followers of the
old order, made Him say:

Scorn ye their hopes, their tears, their inward prayers?
I say unto you, see that your souls live
A deeper life than theirs.

The co-operative movement is delivering over the shaping of the rural
life of Ireland, and the building up of its rural civilization, into
the hands of Irish farmers. The old order of things has left Ireland
unlovely. But if we do not passionately strive to build it better,
better for the men, for the women, for the children, of what worth are
we? We continually come across the phrase "the dull Saxon" in our Irish
papers, it crops up in the speeches of our public orators, but it was an
English poet who said:

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.

And it was the last great, poet England has produced, who had so much
hope for humanity in his country that in his latest song he could mix
earth with heaven, and say that to human eyes:

Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder
Hung betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.

Shall we think more meanly of the future of Ireland than these "dull
Saxons" think of the future of their island? Shall we be content with
humble crumbs fallen from the table of life, and sit like beggars
waiting only for what the commonwealth can do for us, leaving all high
hopes and aims to our rulers, whether they be English or Irish? Every
people get the kind of Government they deserve. A nation can exhibit no
greater political wisdom in the mass than it generates in its units.
It is the pregnant idealism of the multitude which gives power to the
makers of great nations, otherwise the prophets of civilization are
helpless as preachers in the desert and solitary places. So I have
always preached self-help above all other kinds of help, knowing that if
we strove passiona