of the “Golden Vein” were studded with snow white creameries which proclaimed the transfer of this great Irish industry from the tiller of the soil to the man of commerce.  The new-comers secured the milk of the district by giving the farmer much more for his milk than it was worth to him, so long as he pursued the old methods of home manufacture.  This induced farmers to go out of the butter-making business.  After a while the price was reduced, and the proprietor, finding it necessary to give the suppliers only what they could make out of their milk without his modern equipment, realised profits altogether out of proportion to his share of the capital embarked or the labour involved in the production of the butter.

The economic position was ideal for our purpose, and we had no difficulty in explaining it to the farmers themselves.  The social problem was the real difficulty.  To all suggestions of co-operative action they at first opposed a hopeless non possumus.  Their objections may be summed up thus:—­They had never combined for any business purpose.  How could they trust the Committee they were asked to elect from amongst themselves to expend their money and conduct their business?  It was all very well for the proprietor with his ample capital, free hand, and business experience, to work with complicated machinery and to consign his butter out of the reach of the local butter buyer, and to save the waste and delay of the local butter market.  But they knew nothing of the business and would only make fools of themselves.  The promoters—­they were not putting anything into the scheme—­how much did they intend to take out?[38]

There was nothing in this attitude of mind which we had not fully anticipated.  We were confident that, as we were on sound economic ground, no matter what difficulties might confront us it was only a question of time for the attainment of our ends.  All that was required was that we should keep pegging away.  My own experience was not encouraging at first.  I was, and am, a poor speaker, and in Ireland a man who cannot express his thoughts with facility, whether he has got them or not, accentuates the difficulties under which a prophet labours in his own country.  I made up for my deficiencies in the first essential of Irish public life by engaging a very eloquent political speaker, the late Mr. Mulhallen Marum, M.P., to stump the country.  He gave to the propaganda a relish which my prosaic economics altogether lacked.  The nationalist band sometimes came out to meet him.  We all know the efficiency of the drum in politics and religion, but it seemed to me a little out of place in economics.  However, he created an excellent impression, but unhappily he died of heart disease before he had attended more than three or four meetings.  This was a severe blow to us, and we toiled away under some temporary discouragement.  My own diary records attendance at fifty meetings before a single society had resulted therefrom.  It was weary work for a long time.  These gatherings were miserable affairs compared with those which greeted our political speakers.  On one occasion the agricultural community was represented by the Dispensary Doctor, the Schoolmaster, and the Sergeant of Police.  Sometimes, in spite of copious advertising of the meeting, the prosaic nature of the objects had got abroad, and nobody met.