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.
701
stave off many a rice in price that would otherwise have been inevitable.
Moreover, by the personal work they exact from the members of their boards,
these societies provide a large number of workmen with a practical training in
business matters, a training the value of which can scarcely be overestimated.
Agricultural Cooperation. In the field of agriculture the need of
cooperation for various purposes is very great, and it is therefore curious that most of
the societies of this kind are of comparatively modern standing. Thus the
purchasers’ societies, which are the most important both in their numbers and in their
turnover, did not get well under way in Sweden before 1904. The cooperative
dairies, which play such an important role in agriculture, are, on the other
hand, of earlier date: the first cooperative dairy was formed in 1880, though
it was not till the beginning of the nineties that it was followed by any
considerable number of successors. To judge by the number of the societies
actually registered, it was not till 1904 that any decided tendency towards
cooperation among the farmers made itself felt. In that year the number of
registered societies was 146, and in 1906 it reached its culmination, at 210.
In 1911 the number of cooperative agricultural societies actually registered was
only 43.
The 2 096 cooperative agricultural societies registered from 1898 to 1911
show marked differences in point of organization from the workmen’s cooperative
societies. Quite a number of the former (992, or 47 %) are constituted with
limited personal liability for the members: this mode of constitution has
apparently imparted a kind of stability to their business, so that only a very small
number of them have come to grief (see above). In some of these societies there
is a deqided trend towards central organization; it is not invariably the
local societies that have been the first in the field. This is the case, for
instance, with the purchasers’ societies. Private persons in different läns founded
central societies which afterwards gave birth to local enterprises. All the
central and local societies were in their turn eventually amalgamated into one
big central federation embracing the whole of Sweden. Other kinds of societies,
as for instance, the cooperative dairies (andelsmejeri) have no central
organization. Cooperative agricultural societies of various kinds are most numerous in
the two läns that form the province of Skåne, where they have had specially
good opportunities for obtaining good models from Denmark and Germany. In
fact, it was not until cooperative agricultural societies had been tried and found
successful in the southernmost province of the land, that they began to make
their way northwards. In Norrland, however, the interest shown by the farmers
in cooperative associations has been remarkably keen.
A very powerful impetus was imparted to agricultural cooperation by the
report on various kinds of cooperative associations among farmers published by
the Department of Agriculture in 1903. That report gives a reliable and
illuminating exposition of the advantages accruing from association in this field,
and at the same time points out the best means of attaining the ends in view.
As a rule, these organizations have a purely economic character: one finds
in them but little trace of the social ideals that are otherwise a distinguishing
feature of cooperative associations among workmen.
As has been mentioned above, the purchasers’ societies are the most important
undertakings, regarded from the economic point of view, within this group.
At quite an early period there existed in Sweden isolated farmers’ societies,
consisting of the farmers of a village or parish, the object of which was
to buy fodders and manures for the benefit of all in common. But, as there
was no cohesive force to keep them together, and as they were in most cases
obliged to purchase their goods from the merchants, they were unable to
accomplish much. In Skaraborg län an attempt was made in 1895 to gather
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