different thing. The word "community" implies an association of people
having common interests and common possessions, bound together by laws
and regulations which express these common interests and ideals, and
define the relation of the individual to the community. Our rural
populations are no more closely connected, for the most part, than the
shifting sands on the seashore. Their life is almost entirely
individualistic. There are personal friendships, of course, but few
economic or social partnerships. Everybody pursues his own occupation
without regard to the occupation of his neighbors. If a man emigrates
it does not affect the occupation of those who farm the land all about
him. They go on ploughing and digging, buying and selling, just as
before. They suffer no perceptible economic loss by the departure of
half-a-dozen men from the district. A true community would, of course,
be affected by the loss of its members. A co-operative society, if it
loses a dozen members, the milk of their cows, their orders for
fertilizers, seeds, and feeding-stuffs, receives serious injury to its
prosperity. There is a minimum of trade below which its business cannot
fall without bringing about a complete stoppage of its work and an
inability to pay its employees. That is the difference between a
community and an unorganized population. In the first the interests of
the community make a conscious and direct appeal to the individual, and
the community, in its turn, rapidly develops an interest in the welfare
of the member. In the second, the interest of the individual in the
community is only sentimental, and as there is no organization the
community lets its units slip away or disappear without comment or
action. We had true rural communities in ancient Ireland, though the
organization was rather military than economic. But the members of a
clan had common interests. They owned the land in common. It was a
common interest to preserve it intact. It was to their interest to have
a numerous membership of the clan, because it made it less liable to