suggest new productive urban enterprises? Does it not favor an
evolution of manufacturing industry, so that democratic control may
finally replace the autocratic control of the capitalist? The trades
unions cannot do this alone by following up any of their traditional
policies. They cannot go into trade on their own account with any
guarantee of success unless they are associated with agencies of
distribution. But if co-operators--urban and rural--through their
federations invade more and more the field of production they will draw
to themselves the hearts and hopes of the workers and idealists in the
nation. People are really more concerned about the making of an income
than about the spending of it. It is a necessity of our policy if it is
to bring about the co-operative commonwealth, that co-operators must
adventure much more largely into production than they have hitherto
done.

Now let us see what we have come to. There is a country movement which
is not merely one for agricultural production. It is rapidly taking up
the distribution of goods. There is an urban movement not merely
concerned with distribution but entering upon production. They can be
brought into harmony if the same federations act for both branches of
the movement. The meeting-place of the two armies should be there. If
this policy is adopted there will gradually grow-up that unity of
purpose between country and urban workers which is the psychological
basis and necessary precedent for national action for the common good.
The policy of identity of interest must be real, and it can only be real
when the identity of interest is obvious, and it can only be made
obvious when the symbols of that unity and identity are visible day by
day in buildings and manufactures, things which are handled and seen,
and in transactions which daily bring that unity to mind. The old
poetic ideal of a United Ireland was and could only be a geographical