Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - V. Social Movements - 1. Labour Questions and Social politics - Cooperative Societies. By G. H. von Koch
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cooperative societies.
699
being 164 081 kronor, out of which 50 755 kronor have been paid in cash by
the societies; the remainder has been obtained by transferring to the share
account the balance of profit on the trade. Since 1908 the Union has been
carrying on\ savings-bank business among its members. At the close of 1912
the deposits aggregated 1 387 754 kronor distributed over 8 228 pass-books.
Since 1908 the Union owns a margarine factory at Vänersborg, and in the
course of 1913 has acquired its own warehouses at Gävle and Malmö.
Hitherto the wholesale enterprise of the Union has been restricted mainly to
groceries, such as flour, sugar, herring, cheese, margarine, and so forth, as well as
to boots and shoes; however, according as the Union enlarges the sphere of its
activities, it is bound in the natural course of things to embrace within its
sweep other branches of trade as well, and to carry on production on a scale
of greater magnitude.
The Fire Insurance Society already mentioned, which emanated from the
Union and is attached to it, was formed in 1908, and had at the termination
of 1912 insurances on stores and sundry chattels to the aggregate amount of
57 650 350 kronor. The Union is, moreover, in close touch with The Swedish
Practical Life Insurance Society, which after the reorganization it has recently
undergone, may look forward to an equally rapid development. Even now it
has about 6 000 insurances and a total sum of 950 000 kronor in the funds.
Some of the larger cooperative stores have devoted themselves to the
production of articles of food; this form of cooperative production should have a
future before it alongside with that of the wholesale societies. On the other
hand, the producers’ societies properly so speaking have not met with any
great success. The most favourable results have been obtained by the bakers
societies (51 in number in 1911), which play quite a considerable role,
especially in the southern provinces, as regards supplying the workmen with bread.
Besides these bakers’ societies, there are a smaller number of butchers’,
victuallers’, milk societies, etc. The number of producers’ societies properly so
speaking was 95 in 1911, among them some 20 in the finer timber trades and
some 10 in the building trade. Some of these societies were formed during
labour conflicts by the strikers themselves, or through the agency of their trades
unions. The number of production societies that have broken up has been
comparatively large (about 18 %). Producers’ societies pure and simple are not
admitted into the Cooperative Union.
A place apart is assumed by the stevedores’ cooperative societies formed by dock
labourers in certain important ports. By their endeavours to wrest for themselves
a kind of monopoly of the trade, these societies have won a position of
distinction in the labour movement, and in certain places have evoked counter-measures
on the part of the employers. On the other hand, the credit societies in Sweden
are quite insignificant both in numbers and importance.
With regard to the most important group of cooperative societies next after
the cooperative stores, namely the dwellings societies, the reader is referred to
the article on the Housing Problem (see above).
Finally the building societies hold a position in the front rank both in point
of numbers and of activity. Up to 1911 no less than 1 585 of these societies
had been registered, and there doubtless exist a large number that have not
been registered at all. The bulk of these building societies have for their
object to erect premises, principally in the service of the temperance and labour
movement.
The importance of the cooperative enterprises described above does not lie
solely in the economic advantages they afford their members. They have an
important mission to fulfil also in indirect modes. They serve as regulators of
trade prices in general, and they have doubtless in their way contributed to
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