This fact suggests the very pertinent question whether the people who boast a high state of civilization like that of modern New York and Boston are equal to the establishment of a system as just, as fair and as equitable in the production, distribution and protection of wealth as the comparatively ignorant, simple-minded and uncivilized inhabitants of ancient Peru?
The example of Idaho proves that we are. But in England, France and Germany the co-operators have confined their undertakings almost exclusively to manufactures and distribution. The land has rarely entered into their calculations, or when it has been considered has never been regarded as available. In Idaho we have made land the chief feature of our enterprise, and I maintain and, in fact, know, that we could never have succeeded in any marked degree if we had not done so.
A commonwealth which has not the title to its own land is like a house suspended in the air. Even the co-operative societies engaged in manufacture and distribution manufacture and distribute what comes, primarily, from the land.
When they receive the raw material to manufacture or distribute it has been handled by a number of traders, brokers and other middlemen and its price increased oppressively. We avoided all this by owning the land.
In England and other densely populated countries the rich land has all been taken and the owner, whether lord or peasant, will not part with it except for a large sum of money. The co-operator is thus excluded, in those countries, from the use of land. It costs him nearly as much in spot cash to acquire it as the brokers and traders take from him, through a series of years, in profits on the raw product of land.
Now in Idaho land was cheap, and cheap land is the co-operator’s salvation.
I also believe that we were fortunate in locating our colonies in Idaho. The reason for this is that after we had acquired the land of Deer Valley, placed it under irrigation and rendered it highly productive, we had the use of millions of acres of grazing lands for our herds and flocks.
I cannot conceive that a co-operative society could begin its career under more favorable conditions than did the Co-opolitan. It could not have found a better location for its productive farm and city in any other state. It had the best facilities for irrigation and controlling all the waters necessary to render its land productive; it had the means to attach its members to the common purpose.
It was able to avail itself of near and high-priced markets.
Better than all this, it had the open ranges embracing millions of acres of good grazing land, which it was permitted by the laws to use without cost. If we had not possessed this advantage, my judgment is that our struggle would have been increased and prolonged.