More important, I believe, than is generally realised, from an economic and social point of view, are the rural churches. In many European countries, where agricultural coöperation has played a great part in the people's lives, the clergy have ardently supported the system on account of its moral value. In Ireland, some of our very best volunteer organisers are clergymen. Some leaders of the rural church in the United States have told me that a feeling is growing that an increased economic usefulness in the clergy would strengthen their position in the society which they serve in a higher capacity. I know that the suggestion of clerical intervention in secular affairs is open to misunderstanding. But here is a body of educated citizens who would gladly take part in any real social service; and here is a situation where there is work of high moral and social value calling for volunteers. Nothing but good, it seems to me, could result if such men, who have more opportunity and inclination for general reading than the working farmer, would help in explaining the intricacies of coöperative organisation and procedure which must be understood and practised in order that the system may be fruitful.
In addition to its active propagandist work, the central Association could exercise a powerful and helpful influence in other ways. It should, of course, keep both the agricultural and the general press informed of its plans and progress. It should also keep in touch with the agricultural work of all important educational bodies, and more especially urge upon them the necessity of spreading the coöperative idea. The Department of Agriculture would welcome and support the movement; for I know many leading men in that service who thoroughly understand and recognise the immense importance, especially to backward rural communities, of the coöperative principle.
It is not necessary, at this stage, to go further into details. I feel confident that the work of assisting all suitable agencies, such as those I have named, and others which may be available, through organisers of agricultural coöperation and by the spreading of information, would soon enable the central body to render inestimable service to the cause of rural progress. Such, at any rate, is the outline of my first proposal for giving to my American fellow-workers upon the rural problem the assistance which I feel they most need at the present moment. I pass now to my second proposal.
