what is too often forgotten, that farmers are manufacturers, and as such
are entitled to buy the raw materials for their industry at wholesale
prices. Every other kind of manufacturer in the world gets trade terms
when he buys. Those who buy--not to consume, but to manufacture and
sell again--get their requirements at wholesale terms in every country
in the world. If a publisher of books is approached by a bookseller he
gives that bookseller trade terms, because he buys to sell again. If I,
as a private individual, want one of those books I must pay the full
retail price. Even the cobbler, the carpenter, the solitary artist, get
trade terms. The farmer, who is as much a manufacturer as the
shipbuilder, or the factory proprietor, is as much entitled to trade
terms when he buys the raw materials for his industry. His seeds,
fertilizers, ploughs, implements, cake, feeding-stuffs are the raw
materials of his industry, which he uses to produce wheat, beef, mutton,
pork, or whatever else; and, in my opinion, there should be no
differentiation between the farmer when he buys and any other kind of
manufacturer. Is it any wonder that agriculture decays in countries
where the farmers are expected to buy at retail prices and sell at
wholesale prices? We must not, to save any friction, sell the rights of
farmers. The second proposition I lay down is that this necessary
organization work among the farmers must be carried on by an organizing
body which is entirely controlled by those interested in agriculture--
farmers and their friends. To ask the State or a State Department to
undertake this work is to ask a body influenced and often controlled by
powerful capitalists, and middle agencies which it should be the aim of
the organization to eliminate. The State can, without obstruction from
any quarter, give farmers a technical education in the science of
farming; but let it once interfere with business, and a horde of angry
interests set to work to hamper and limit by every possible means and
compromises on matters of principle, where no compromise ought to be