The Belgian Socialist leaders all emphasize the importance of this unity of economic and political activity, and the priority of the economic over the political. It has been a splendid stimulant for the Belgian workman. It has aroused him out of the lethargy that has been his greatest enemy for years. It has taught him to work with others, the value of mass movement, the futility of separateness. It has schooled him, not only in reading and arithmetic, in the night classes established everywhere; but in business, in weights and measures; in percentage, in profit and loss; and most of all, in the real hardships that meet tradespeople and commercial men everywhere in their endeavor to get on. Workingmen often think that a business man is a necromancer juggling profits out of other people's necessities. The Belgian co-operativist has found out that trading is a commonplace and tedious task which requires constant alertness and is merely the drudgery of detail. This experience has taught him, moreover, the futility of laws and the utility of effort. In Belgium I was impressed most of all by the nonchalance, almost contempt, that the workman displays toward mere legislation. "Why should I toy with words when I have this?" And he points proudly to his co-operative store. The Belgian workman has been taught through his co-operative experience the value of patient toil and frugality. Slowly he has built up these institutions out of his own savings. When he thought his scant wages were barely enough for bread, he discovered means somehow to pay his dues in the "Mutualité." As an instance of his thrift, he saves every year a little fund which is used by the family for an annual holiday, usually a short excursion to a neighboring place of interest. Every member of the family contributes to this fund, and, no matter how poor, they look forward to their yearly holiday. The Belgian Socialist has also been successful in another field. While in other countries the Socialists have tried usually in vain to lure the peasant and small farmer, the Belgians have made constant progress in this direction. The agrarian movement began with the organizing of the Labor Party.[12]