The Co-operative movement attracts the most intelligent and progressive elements of the rural population.  Strictly non-political itself, it unites creeds and parties.  It is as strong in predominantly Roman Catholic districts as in predominantly Protestant districts, strongest of all in Catholic Wexford.  Probably two-thirds or more of the co-operators are Home Rulers, but that only accidentally reflects the distribution of Irish parties.  On the local committees political animus is unknown.  The governing body contains members, lay and clerical, of all shades of opinion.  Step into Plunkett House, that hospitable headquarters of the Organization Society, and if you have been nurtured in legends about inextinguishable class and creed antipathies, which are supposed to render Home Rule impossible and the eternal “umpirage” of Great Britain inevitable, you will soon learn to marvel that anyone can be found to propagate them.  Here, just because men are working together in a practical, self-contained, home-ruled organization for the good of the whole country, you will find liberality, open-mindedness, brotherhood, and keen, intelligent patriotism from Ulsterman and Southerners alike.  The atmosphere is not political.  But you will come away with a sense of the absurdity, of the insolence, of saying that a country which can produce and conduct fine movements like this is unfit for self-government.  I should add a word about a new organization which only came into being this year, and which also has its home at Plunkett House, the United Irishwomen, whose aim, in their own words, is to “unite Irishwomen for the social and economic advantage of Ireland.”  “They intend to organize the women of all classes in every rural district in Ireland for social service.  These bodies will discuss, and, if need be, take action upon any and every matter which concerns the welfare of society in their several localities.  So far as women’s knowledge and influence will avail, they will strive for a higher standard of material comfort and physical well-being in the country home, a more advanced agricultural economy, and a social existence a little more in harmony with the intellect and temperament of our people.”  Anyone who wants to understand something of the spirit of the new self-reliant Ireland which is springing up to-day should read the thrilling little pamphlet (I cannot describe it otherwise) from which I quote these words, and which introduced the United Irish-women to the world, with its preface by Father T.A.  Finlay, and its essays by Mrs. Ellice Pilkington, Sir Horace Plunkett, and Mr. George W. Russell, better known as “AE,” poet, painter, and Editor of the Co-operative weekly, the Irish Homestead.  Nor can I leave this part of my subject without referring to that amazing little journal.  No other newspaper in the world that I know of bears upon it so deep an impress of genius.  There are no “politics,” in the Irish sense, in it.  It would be impossible to infer from its pages how the Editor voted.  What fascinates the reader is the shrewd and witty analysis of Irish problems, the high range of vision which exposes the shortcomings and reveals the illimitable possibilities of a regenerated Ireland and the ceaseless and implacable war waged by the Editor upon all pettiness, melancholy, and pessimism.