Fulton County tribune. (Wauseon, Ohio) 1883-1925, 1914-03-20

S<Av AAN4 A0N
Dublin. Ireland. Poverty and dis
tress and squalor and hunger is still
present in the slums of some of the
5arger cities Of Ireland But over the
richer rural parts Ireland has come
Intelligent organized industry and en-
thusiastic energy which make it as
rich and prosperous as the richest
portions of the great middle west in
America. Rural Ireland is unquestion-
ably regenerate Ireland. The process
pf regeneration is progressing. Pros
perity is crowding out poverty and in
wading even those regions which have
heretofore been considered the natural
Btrongholds Of poverty.
How Prosperity Came to ireland.
There are several contributing
causes for this changed condition. The
land tenure laws have done wonders.
Under old conditions the slightest in
dication Of prosperity upon the part
OF the tenant, If 1t were only new cap
or the wife clean apron, meant
Eaise in rent 1t was to the advant-
age Of the tenant farmer to seem more
miserable than he was. The system
put premium on squalor and ragged
ness and slovenly farming. No one
could safely whitewash his cottage or
plant q tree or cultivate flower. Now
all is changed. Three hundred thou
sand farmer tenants are now purchas-
ing their holdings under a beneficent
law, which permits the purchase Of the
land without the advance payment Of
q cent The only obligation upon the.
purchaser is that he pay annually 2A
per cent upon the value of the little
Farm as interest and less than one-half
per cent as an instalIment upon the
principal Under this law the entire
tenant class are acquiring their homes
by the annual payment Of sums aggre-
eating considerably less than the for
mer rent.
! piunkett Teaches Cooperation.
There can be no doubt that rural
IRELAND is making a business success of
farming But it .is not doing it's bust
ness In business-like way because Of
any spontaneous impulse on the part
Of the Irish farmer 1t is rather be-
kause businesslike Irishmen went
about organizing the business pro-
cedure Of rural enterprises in a most
business-Iike way. The leader Of these
business-like Irishmen Is Sir Horace
Plunkett. To him Ireland owes more
than 1t will ever realize. From the
first his propaganda was educational.
His proposition was that the Irish
farmer must be taught the efficacy OF
combination In industries. He did not
believe In subsidies or subventions.
Nor did he believe that relief would
come through legislation or through
state aid in any form. AS Father Fin
lay, professor Of econimics In the Ma
kional University of Dublin, says: -The
farmers best resources he held to be
themselves. and in their own intelli-
gence, self-reliance and mutual trust,
and these resources 1t was his pur-
pose to develop
He Encounters Difficulties.
There seemed to be most excellent
reasons why he could not succeed. The
Irish people were dispfrited and dis
rouraged- They were suspicious and
afraid Of all new movements. Sir
Horace Plunkett himself belonged to
the despised landlord class, with which
the people had been long In constant
conflict.
AS Father Finlay says "In religion
he was a Protestant and his appeal
would be to people predominantly
Catholic in a country where religious
Antagonisms prevade every sphere Of
social life. In politics-so far as he
was poiitician-he was Unionist,
and those whom he proposed to infiu-
ence we're Nationalists by vast ma
sority, keenly suspicious of any policy
which threatened to divert the mind
Of the nation from the political aims
on which it was passionately bent"
1t is not surprising, therefore, that it
was only after more than a year of
strenuous efforts and after more than
ffty public meetings had been held,
than in 1889 a body Of Limerick farm
ers finally consented to establish CO.
operative creamery. 1t was again over
a year before second one followed
suit. BY the end Of 1891, however.
seventeen creameries were at work,
and at the end Of 1893 thirty had been
organized. Thereafter the cooperative
societies we're organized more rapidly.
Now cooperation and good business
method prevail throughout Ireland.
There are $50 cooperative so
cieties upon the island. With an ag-
gregate paid up share capital of about
a million dollars their annual turnover
Is twelve million dollars.
In 1894 the cooperative movement
has become go great that there was
need of a central society to carry on
the work which had heretofore been
done by volunteer propagandists.
The l. A. o. s.
There was needed an organization
which should help rural communities
organize their marketing and business
processes. be central federation OF
all existing societies, and become a
supervisor and auditor of their bust
ness methods. Such society Is the
Irish Agricultural society. At its
head has been and is Sir Horace
Plunkett, who has been the John the
Puzzle In Electricity.