To my associates they but accentuated the need for the movement which they had so laboriously thought out, and the very nature of the difficulties confirmed them in their belief that the economic doctrine they were preaching was adapted to meet the requirements of the case.
And so the event proved.
In the year 1894 the movement had gathered volume to such an extent--although the societies then numbered but one for every twenty that are in existence to-day--that it became beyond the power of a few individuals to direct its further progress.

In April of that year a meeting was held in Dublin to inaugurate the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, Ltd.

(now commonly known as the I.A.O.S.), which was to be the analogue of the Co-operative Union in England.

In the first instance it was to consist of philanthropic persons, but its constitution provided for the inclusion in its membership of the societies which had already been created and those which it would itself create as time went on.

It had, and has to-day, a thoroughly representative Committee.