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DIVISION OF ECONOMICS AND HISTORY
RELIMINARY ECONOMIC STUDIES OF THE WAR
THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUGO- SLAVIA, RUMANIA AND NORTH ITALY DURING AND AFTER THE WORLD WAR
3531-6
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Publications of the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Division of Economics and History
John Bates Clark, Director
PRELIMINARY ECONOMIC STUDIES OF THE WAR
No. 21
THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT
IN JUGOSLAVIA. RUMANIA
AND NORTH ITALY
BY
DIARMID COFFEY
Librarian, The Cooperative Reference Library, Dublin
THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT
IN JUGOSLAVIA, RUMANIA
AND NORTH ITALY
During and After the World War
BY
DIARMID COFFEY
Librarian, The Cooperative Reference Library, Dublin
NEW YORK
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Amebican Branch: 35 West 32nd Street LONDON, TORONTO, MELBOURNE AND BOMBAY
1922
COrVRIGHT 193a BY THE CARltEOIB ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACI
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AUTHOR'S PREFACE
The following studies of the cooperative movement in Serbia and Rumania during and after the War are the outcome of an in- vestigation undertaken by me at the instigation in the first instance and with the financial support of the Horace Plunkett Foundation Trust and the English Labour Research Depart- ment. The preparation of a report for the Carnegie Endow- ment for International Peace enabled me to extend the time and scope of my investigation. I had originally intended to make a full inquiry into Italian cooperation, but I found that were I to attempt this I should have to devote six months or a year to Italy alone. The extraordinary number of cooperative organi- zations in Italy and the wide range of their activities are such that no one could attempt to speak with authority who had not spent a very long time in the country and who did not speak Italian almost as his native language. I therefore attempted only a cursory view of Italian cooperation and have appended a few brief and inadequate notes of what I saw in Italy.
My investigations in Jugoslavia and Rumania were far more fruitful, and I think I may claim to give a fairly comprehensive view of cooperative conditions in these countries. I have not seen any accounts of them which give as general a description as I have attempted, and therefore I hope that the reader, will find matter which will interest him.
I had originally intended to return to Ireland through Hun- gary, Austria and Czechoslovakia, but the fates decided against this. My companion on the journey was an Irish agriculturist, Mr. A. Vere O'Brien, whose practical knowledge of farming was of great assistance to me. Unfortunately, he became seriously ill, which necessitated the curtailment of my plans. After a month in a hospital at Brasov (Cronstadt) he became well enough to travel again. But traveling in Eastern Europe was very difficult. The trains were so crowded that, with luck, standing
Tl AUTHOR S PREFACE
room in a corridor only was obtainable. Many persons traveled on the roofs of the coaches, and I have seen them climbing down and hanging on between the carriages while passing through a tunnel! There was only one good train from Rumania west- ward, the Simplon Orient Express, and as it passed through Jugo- slavia we had reluctantly to abandon our visit to Hungary and Austria.
The reports were written under certain disadvantages arising out of the political situation in Ireland. My diaries, written in the form of letters, were seized by the British military authori- ties. Fortunately, my note-books were not discovered, and I have therefore been able to supply the technical details, but by the loss of my record of casual remarks and impressions my report has been deprived of much that would not only have made it pleas- anter to read but would also have thrown light on the social condi- tions which influence cooperative movement in the various places I visited.
I should like to take this opportunity of thanking those who by their hospitality and kindness made it possible for me to learn much that would otherwise have been difficult to discover. I should particularly mention Signor Fortis of Milan, Dr. Costanso of the International Institute of Agriculture at Rome, Signor Mami at Bologna, Signor Zanchetta at Treviso, MM. Galyer and Vukmir at Zagreb, the Secretaries of the Cooperative Unions at Ljubljana, Split and Sarajevo, and, last but not least in Jugo- slavia, M. M. Avramovitch and Dr. Prohaska of the Union of Belgrade, to whom I owe more than I can well express. In Rumania the Director of the Union of Credit Societies and the Director of the Union of Agricultural Societies, and M. G. Mladenatz and M. Teodorescu, who accompanied me on visits to societies, were all of the greatest assistance and kindness. M. Lupu also gave me valuable help.
DiARMID COFFEV.
Dublin, Ireland, /luffust, 1921.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Introduction 1
Part I, — ^The Effects of the War on Cooperation in Jugoslavia
General Conditions 3
Serbia I 6
Croatia 19
Slovenia 29
Dalmatia _ ^33
Bosnia and Herzegovina.- 35
Industrial Cooperatives in Jugoslavia and General Conclusions 41
Conclusion 43
Part II. — ^The Effects of the War on Cooperation in
Rumania
People's Banks, Agricultural Conditions and the War 45
The New National Organizations.-- 56
Urban Cooperation 65
Part III. — ^The Effects of the War on Cooperation in North Italy
General Organization 71
Socialist and Catholic Groupings 73
Consumers Societies 75
Cooperative Productive Societies 79
The Movement in Milan 79
The Movement in Genoa 84
The Movement in Venetia 88
The Agricultural Cooperatives 91
Index. 97
INTRODUCTION
The cooperative movement as a whole seems to have survived the war more successfully than many other forms of enterprise. In Central Europe reports show that, comparatively speaking, at least, the cooperative societies have made progress since the World War. In France and Switzerland all forms of coopera- tion are flourishing, and in the former there has been some co- operative effort for reorganizing the devastated areas. In the countries with which this report deals there can be no doubt that cooperation has demonstrated its efficiency and elasticity in meet- ing economic difficulties. Where private enterprise has failed, cooperation has been able to insure the fair distribution of sup- plies. It has kept the economic nation alive in many districts where other forms of trade have actually ceased to function.
This must largely be ascribed to the fact that the cooperative societies command the confidence of their members and are therefore regarded as of especial importance when rapid fluctua- tions in value encourage profiteering and speculative buying. The value of this confidence is shown by the fact that in Southeastern Europe not only did the Governments of Serbia and Rumania use their cooperative societies as the means of distributing essential commodities, but the Austrian and Hungarian Governments actually used cooperative societies formed by members of the subject races of their old dominions both for collecting agricul- tural products and for distributing manufactured goods.
The more particular reasons why cooperation has gained rather than lost by the economic catastrophe of the War are : ( 1 ) The increase in the cost of living has made the savings ef- fected by cooperative purchasing of great importance to the vast bulk of the people of Europe. (2) The continued necessity of distributing has controlled necessities of life, such as bread, salt, flour and tobacco. (3) The general upset of international trade has made the procuring of the raw materials of agriculture (seeds.
2 INTRODUCTION
manures, etc.) more difficult and has therefore reacted in favor of cooperative supply. (4) The rapid change from large estates to small holdings which is taking place in the Balkans and to tome extent in Italy is causing a development of agricultural co- operation. (5) The spread of revolutionary and communistic ideas in Europe has caused the governments of the countries in question to favor a movement which, by providing a means of solving economic difficulties, may make actual revolution less probable.
Cooperation differs greatly in the three countries with which this report deals. In Jugoslavia it was, except for Serbia itself, largely political and anti-Austro-Hungarian in its aim. In Rumania it is very much in the hands of government departments, and in Italy it is mainly political and in the control of the different political parties. But dspite these differences the main stream of cooperation is the same. It is at bottom a democratic move- ment, with the well-being of the groups of individuals forming the societies as its object. It is open to all citizens of the state and in so far its aim is for the well-being of the state. Europe is now in a state of disorganization and change, and the cooperative societies everywhere represent a stabilizing element which can adapt itself to change without violence. In Jugoslavia and Rumania it is clear that a united cooperative movement will be a great element of strength. They are both agricultural coun- tries, where cooperation takes on a simple and unifying form. In Italy the problem is more difficult and the elements of discord more obvious. What the end will be there it is impossible to say; but whatever may happen, Italy is the country which has led the way in cooperative production and the application of the princi- ples of cooperation to industry.
PART I
THE EFFECTS OF THE WAR ON COOPERATION IN JUGOSLAVIA
General Conditions
The cooperative movement in Jugoslavia was strong previous to the War and has emerged from the struggle stronger than before; but its orientation has been completely changed and its character is undergoing great modification. Jugoslavia is formed of a number of the states which were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire but which at the end of the War broke away from that empire and joined themselves to Serbia. The three main divi- sions of the population — Serbs, Croats and Slovenes — recognized the King of Serbia as the head of their united country, and called their new kingdom the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (S. H. S. Monarchy). This is still the official title of the new state; but the name Jugoslav or Southern Slav is a generic term for all these people and the name Jugoslavia is more convenient than S. H. S. Monarchy and is therefore adopted in this report. It is probable that the name Jugoslavia will be officially recog- nized before very long, as it is already generally used by the peo- ple of that country.
The divisions of the country are, first, Serbia, which has been an independent country since it threw off the last vestiges of the Turkish yoke at the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. It has an area of 18,650 square miles, and its estimated population in 1911 was 2,957,207, of whom about 2,900,000 belonged to the Greek Orthodox Church. The country is almost entirely rural. Bel- grade is the only big town, but it has less than 100,000 inhabi- tants. The Rivers Save and Danube form the northern bound- ary of Serbia, and north of the Danube comes the Banat of Temesvar, a portion of which, at the end of the World War,
4 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUGOSLAVIA
cmme into Serbian hands. North of the Save lies Slavonia, and east of Slavonia, crossing some of the middle ranges of the Save, Croatia. These two provinces have as their northern boundary the River Drave and the Danube. They form one administra- tive whole with its capital at Zagreb (Agram). The area is 16,421 square miles and the population was 2,621,954 in 1910. The bulk of the population is Serb or Croat, who are respectively Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic in religion. The principal town, Zagreb, is the scat of government for these two provinces, which up to the end of the War were under Hungarian rule. There is very little manufacturing in the country. It is chiefly agricultural and pastoral.
West of Croatia lies the country of the Slovenes, Carinthia, part of Styria and Carniola. At the time this report was com- piled the question remained unsettled as to whether the Klagen- furt area of Carinthia should be Austrian or Jugoslav, but the result of the Klagenfurt plebiscite has given the whole of the district to Austria. The southern portion of Styria forms part of Jugoslavia. Carniola, with its capital Ljubljana (Laibach), is the most important part of the Slovene district and had a meas- ure of local autonomy under the Austrian Government. East of this again lie Istria and Goritzia, which have a mixed population of Italians and Slavs and which have been assigned to Italy. The area of Carniola is 3,989 square miles and the population is about 530,000, practically all Roman Catholic. There are a few industries in Laibach and the surrounding district. The coun- try is rather hilly. The total Slovene population of the Aus- trian Dominions was given as 1,252,940 in 1910. South of Croatia and running along the Adriatic Coast is Dalmatia, with an area of 4,955 square miles and a population of about 670,000, chiefly Croat Roman Catholic. At the time of the making of this report there was a dispute between Jugoslavia and Italy as to ownership of a portion of the Dalmatian Coast and Islands, which was settled at the Treaty of Rapallo. That treaty as- signed practically the whole to Jugoslavia, but left the Italians some control over the town of Zara and some other towns and islands. Split (Spalato) is the capital and seat of the local gov-
GENERAL CONDITIONS 5
ernment, which was at Zara under Austrian control. East of Dalmatia, lying between that province and the Kingdom of Serbia, are Bosnia and Herzegovina, which were occupied and adminis- tered by the joint Austro-Hungarian Government from the Treaty of Berlin in 1878 until October, 1908, when the two provinces were formally annexed. The area is 19,768 square miles and the estimated population in 1912 was 1,962,411, of whom 626,000 were Mohammedan, 856,000 Greek Orthodox and 451,000 Roman Catholic. The population is mixed — Serb and Croat; the Roman Catholics are Croat, the Greek Catholics are Serb and the Mohammedans may belong to either race but are not Turks.
The language spoken throughout the whole country is the Southern Slav language, which is very like Russian. It is pos- sible for an inhabitant from one part of the country to understand one from another part; the difference in dialect is said to be not greater than the difference in English dialect; the noticeable dis- tinction is that the Serbs use the Cyrillic alphabet, which is much like Russian, while the Croats and Slovenes use the Roman char- acter, but an educated man can easily read either character, and the distinction is not of much more importance than the use of Gaelic or Roman characters in Gaelic, or German or Roman characters in German. The religion has been mentioned in each case, as broadly speaking it distinguishes the Serb from the Croat or Slovene, and as will be seen in later stages of this report it has played an important part in the prewar development of coopera- tion throughout Jugoslavia.
As may be seen above, the whole population is predominantly rural. There is no big manufacturing town in the whole coun- try, and except on the Dalmatian Coast, where there is a certain amount of fishing, the population depends directly upon the land for its support. The towns are administrative and distributing centers. As far as cooperation is concerned, outside of Zagreb there is hardly any hon-rural cooperation, but there is a strong agricultural cooperative movement in every province, based chiefly on credit societies of the Raiffeisen type, which have developed various forms of activity.
6 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUGOSLAVIA
Up to and during the War, what is now the cooperative move- ment of Jugoslavia was divided into four main branches: (I) cooperation in Serbia proper; (2) cooperation in those dis- tricts which are under Hungarian rule; (3) cooperation in dis- tricts under Austrian rule; and (4) cooperation in Bosnia and Herzegovina under joint Austrian and Hungarian rule.
In Croatia, which is under Hungarian rule, there were three types of society : ( 1 ) societies encouraged and partly financed by the Hungarian Government, which group has practically dis- appeared; (2) Croat societies, and (3) Serb societies. Both of these latter are largely controlled by the priests of the Roman Catholic and Greek Churches, respectively. Neither had gov- ernment support, but each was regarded with suspicion by the Hungarian Government, which, however, encouraged anything which kept the two races disunited, and on the whole favored the Croat rather than the Serb society. In Slovenia the co- operative societies were divided into clerical and anti-clerical, the latter being slightly, but only slightly, socialistic in tendency. In Dalmatia there were no visible traces of such divisions, though it is possible that the Italian element, where it is strong enough, may produce a division there ; but at the time of writing, the Ital- ians and the Croats were strictly kept down in districts occupied by the other nation and had little opportunity of expressing them- selves. In Bosnia and Herzegovina the distinction between Serb and Croat societies was much the same as in Croatia. The Mohammedans had no societies. The cooperators of Jugoslavia wish to form one united movement out of these various elements, and the steps they are taking to secure this unity will be dealt with in the conclusion of this section of the report.
Serbia
The cooperative movement in Serbia proper is a united move- ment. Its difficulties were considerably less than in the other parts of the country, because Serbia was a united and independent country without the strong religious and political divisions which mark the other portions of Jugoslavia.
The moving spirit of cooperation in Serbia is M. Avramo- vitch, to whose energy and enthusiasm cooperation in that coun-
SERBIA 7
try owes a very great debt. M. Avramovitch is still far from being an old man, and he has seen his work bear fruit and what is sure to be lasting fruit, and now it is likely that he will unite all Jugoslavia in one consolidated cooperative movement, which will lead the Jugoslav peasantry into a better, more prosperous and more social life than has hitherto been possible for them.
The first cooperative society in Serbia was founded in 1894 and by 1910 there were 908 societies, of which 615 were credit societies, 42 distributive societies, 153 machinery societies, 12 dairies and 3 wine societies. There was also a central bank, with its headquarters at Belgrade, for lending money to and receiving deposits from societies. The bank also supplied seeds, chemicals, manures, agricultural machinery, etc., and in 1909 it had granted loans to the value of 968,000 dinars and received deposits of 320,000. The state lent the bank 2,000,000 dinars free of inter- est; 5 per cent was charged by the bank for loans and 4 per cent interest was paid on deposits. The bank does not distribute a dividend and its profits and reserves are indivisible, so that if it should ever come to be liquidated, after the state loan has been repaid, any money over must go to some public purpose. The figures and facts given above were supplied by M. Avramovitch to the International Institute of Agriculture at Rome in 1910. The invasion of Serbia by the Austrians in 1914 and the Balkan Wars of 1912—13 made it difficult to obtain accurate informa- tion about cooperation during those years ; but according to state- ments made to the writer by M. Avramovitch, there were in 1914 about 1,200 societies, with a membership of about 80,000. Of these societies, 800 were credit societies, 200 agricultural con- sumers societies, 154 machinery societies, 8 wine societies and 40 for the insurance of livestock.
During the War the whole of Serbia was occupied by enemy forces, and as a result the cooperative movement was brought to a complete standstill, though in some cases the machinery of the societies was used by the invaders in a way that made it easy to re-form them. It may thus be said that for the period of the War the history of cooperation in Serbia is a complete blank. As soon as the Serbs were able to reoccupy their country, M. Avramovitch set himself to the reorganization of the cooperative
8 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUGOSLAVIA
movement, and by June, 1920, there were about 800 societies, of which 600 were old societies revived and 200 were newly formed. The whole work of revival was so new and was proceeding so rapidly that M. Avramovitch was not able to give definite and accurate figures of the growth of his movement since the war, but the figures given above may be taken as being a near approxima- tion to the actual state of affairs. But the revived movement differs to a considerable extent from the movement before the War, and this difference, as might be expected, is practically uni- versal throughout the countries of Europe with which the present writer is acquainted. Before the War the need of credit was greatly felt by the farming community in general, and this was particularly the case in undeveloped countries like Serbia. The War, however, exercised a profound effect upon the economic state of the rural population. Prices of all foodstuffs rose enormously and at the same time the spending power of the farmer was greatly restricted, owing to the difficulty of procuring goods. As a result, at the end of the War the average peasant found him- self with large supplies of money, though probably not greatly increased wealth, as he had less stock, and, owing to the difficulty of obtaining fertilizers, his land had in many cases deteriorated in quality. An obvious result of this was that for the moment he did not need credit but had a large amount of currency to deposit. Almost invariably it is found that in credit societies before the War the loans greatly exceeded the deposits and after the War the deposits exceeded the loans. On the other hand, there was a general shortage of manufactured articles and in fact of every- thing which could not be grown or produced in the immediate district. Transport in Eastern Europe was slow and bad, rail- way bridges were usually temporary structures, over which a train could pass only very slowly, rolling-stock was heavily depleted and out of repair, and fuel was bad and insufficient. The need, therefore, was not credit societies but supply societies, which were organized for the distribution of the necessities of life and manu- factured goods in general. The formation of these societies was to some extent stimulated by the fact that the government used
SERBIA 9
cooperative societies of all kinds for the distribution of govern- ment monopolies, such as tobacco and salt, during the War.
The Union of Serbian Cooperative Societies at Belgrade {Glavni savez Srpskih Zemljoradnickih zadruga), of which M. Avramovitch is secretary, is at once an organizing and a whole- sale society. Its function as an organizing body consists of giv- ing advice and help to societies which get into difficulties, auditing their accounts and lending money through the cooperative bank which is affiliated with the Union. Besides the inspection work, the Union has courses in the theory of cooperation, accounting and bookkeeping, cooperative law, management, etc. Its whole- sale business is carried on in a storehouse attached to the head- quarters of the Union, which has stores of the chief necessities of life. Since the demand for loans has fallen off, the whole- sale business has expanded; the general need of supplies felt throughout Serbia has caused a great increase in the wholesale trade. This makes up for the decrease in profits through the bank. The societies pay 10 per cent of their profits to the Union, which is the primary source of revenue.
Serbia is very badly developed as regards transport. There are very few lines of railway and most of the roads are mere tracks, though some main roads have been made and must at one time have been good, but the result of heavy traffic during the War has greatly reduced their quality. During the winter months, when there is not sufficient snow for sledges, the by- roads are practically impassable. This does not, however, very seriously interfere with the economic side of the nation, as what is lost in the easy supply of manufactured goods is gained in the practical self-sufficiency of each district. The Serbian clothes are practically all home-made from wool spun by the women and woven by them. They also weave cotton yarn and hemp, which latter is grown in the country. Some cotton is grown in the southern part of the country; silk is also produced. The princi- pal crops are wheat, barley, oats, maize, rye and roots; a consid- erable quantity of plums are grown and a strong form of brandy made from them, and the cultivation of vines for wine-making is
10 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUGOSLAVIA
pretty general. Cattle-raising and dairy products form another important part of the national economy.
Owing to the difficulties of transport, which were greatly ac- centuated by the bad condition of the railways already referred to, it was necessary to confine the visits to societies to a small area, and all the societies to which particular reference will be made as examples of the type of society found in Serbia lie in a district about 40 miles south of Belgrade, and in no case more than 10 miles from the main line of railway to Nish and Constantinople. The societies in this area are some of the best in the country and include agricultural distributive societies, implement societies, wine societies and credit societies.
The first society visited was at Mladenovac, a railway station and small country town, where there is a consumers' society, one of the few distributive societies which are not purely rural. It had been founded only seven months and its membership was 75, composed chiefly of employes of the state (post office, rail- way, etc.) and very few peasant members. The chief goods sup- plied were sugar, coflfee, rice, boots and shoes, clothes, etc., al- though it supplied a small quantity of agricultural seeds and manures. Its supplies were bought from the Union of Serbian Societies at Belgrade. The fact that Mladenovac is a town im- plies that there is a greater demand for manufactured goods and for foodstuffs than in a purely agricultural district. The capital of the society is 8,000 dinars, divided into shares of 50 dinars, of which no member may hold more than ten shares. The turnover averages from 5,000 to 6,000 dinars a month, but occasionally the difficulty of getting supplies is so great that business is prac- tically suspended. The society sells considerably cheaper than ordinary shops; for example, coflfee was selling at 20 dinars a kilo and the current price was 24. The local shopkeepers naturally disliked the society, but so far have made no eflforts to organize to undersell it. There was no society in Mladenovac before the War and perhaps local traders had not yet grasped the idea of trying to ruin the society by selling for a time at a loss. The secretary of the society, from whom this information was ob- tained, was teacher for the local state school, and a full-time
SERBIA 11
manager was employed at a salary of 450 dinars a month. It is probable that the cooperative society in Mladenovac will grow into an important one, as arrangements were being made to start a corn-selling society, which the peasants of the surrounding dis- tricts and their cooperative societies were to finance, and it was expected that the state would also come to their assistance. This would undoubtedly cause the cooperative society in Mlade- novac to become of more importance to peasants of the neighbor- hood. The existing society is an example of a society largely created by post-war conditions and the scarcity of supplies.
At Koracica, about six miles from Mladenovac, there are three agricultural societies, a threshing society and a supply society. The village of Koracica is a small group of scattered houses. The peasants are practically all small farmers, with farms rang- ing from 15 to 30 acres; the biggest farm in the district is only 125 acres. The land is good, a considerable number of cattle and pigs are reared and wheat is grown. There are also orchards and most of the houses have small vegetable patches. The credit society was founded in 1900 by 6S members and in two years increased to 108, but by 1912 it had fallen to 30 members. The reason given by the secretary for this falling off was that the president of the society took more interest in politics than in cooperation, and as a result he offended a large number of the members. Up to the beginning of the World War the member- ship remained at 30 and during the War the work of the society was suspended altogether. On the Austrians occupying the coun- try, the secretary hid in his shoes such money as he had belonging to the society and tried to escape to southern Serbia. He was not able to make good his escape and had to return, but succeeded in concealing the money. The Austrians destroyed all the books of the society and demolished its premises and furniture, and the result was that it was possible to get only a general statement as to the condition of the society before the War.
The credit society has first of all a savings fund into which each member is compelled to pay one dinar a week. The sum formed by these savings can not be withdrawn without the con- sent of the committee of the society, and if a member wishes
12 THE CXX)PERATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUGOSLAVIA
money he must borrow from the society. On the death of a member his savings are payable to his family, but in most cases they nominate one among themselves to take the place of the deceased member. Six per cent is paid on savings and 10 per cent is charged for loans. Besides this compulsory savings fund, members are entitled to deposit money, on which 8 per cent is paid. The society which was founded in 1900 bought a steam threshing set in 1902, which was used to thresh for both mem- bers and non-members. The payment for the threshing was taken in kind, 5 per cent being taken from members and 8 per cent from non-members. As the books were destroyed, it was not possible to obtain any accurate figures as to the progress of this society. Figures for the year 1912, however, were avail- able, in which year the savings amounted to 4,098 dinars, deposits to 1,284 dinars, loans to 1,576 dinars, the reserve fund to 500 dinars, and that year the reserve was spent on repairing the threshing-machine. The next year for which any figures could be procured was the year 1919, when the savings had reached 4,143 dinars and the reserve fund no less than 6,000 dinars. This large increase in the reserve fund in the first year after the War was made out of dealings in grain, which was at a very high price in 1919. There were no deposits and no loans made in that year, and the reserve was all spent again in repairing the threshing- machine, which had suffered from want of renewals during the War. Membership in 1919 increased to 120, or four times the pre-war number. This increase is partly accounted for by the fact that, owing to an alteration in the Serbian law, a society which deals with members only is entitled to a reduction of taxation. Up to July, 1920, the savings of the society amountd to 4,669 dinars. From this account it would appear as though the thresh- ing society and the credit society were one. In theory, they are two separate societies, and the threshing society continued to work right through the War during the Austrian occupation, while the credit society was brought to a complete standstill. But when it is realized that the committee of these two societies were the same persons, the membership the same, that the books of the prewar and war periods were lost, and that since the War the ac-
SERBIA 13
counts of the two societies have been kept as a single account, the reader can easily understand that it is very difficult to distinguish between them. The noticeable fact in the above account is that since the War there have been neither deposits nor loans and that the credit society is simply a sort of savings bank which also makes money by owning a threshing society.
The reason why there are no loans or deposits is that the need for loans has practically disappeared, for the reasons already given, while deposits have been attracted to an agricultural sup- ply society, which was formed in 1910 by the same 30 members who formed the credit and threshing society. Its original capital was 66S dinars, and it took deposits which came to 1,561 dinars. The society had a somewhat inglorious existence up to 1912, when its membership had dropped to 28. From 1912 to 1919 no figures were to be had; by July, 1920, there were 150 members and 50 new applications for membership, but the new members had to wait to be enrolled, as in Serbia the approval of a district magistrate is necessary for the enrollment of members of a co- operative society. The society completely disappeared during the War, so that it may be said that this agricultural society is practically a new creation. In 1912 its turnover came to only about 2,000 dinars, while in 1919 purchases amounted to 33,600 dinars and sales to 31,400 dinars, and in July the capital con- sisted of 3,295 dinars share capital and 3,079 dinars deposits, a total of 6,374 dinars. The society deals in but few commodities, as the district is practically self-supporting. Its chief business is in clothes and copper sulphate; coffee, salt and matches are dis- tributed through the society by the commune, but are controlled articles. It had just begun to buy pigs and sheep from its mem- bers, kill them and sell the dressed meat, but this is only a very small business and amounts to about three animals a month. ^
The members of all the societies in Koracica are much inter- ested in the proposed grain society at Mladenovac, which they think will be a great benefit to the country.
* It is interesting to note in this connection that during the last years of the War several Irish agricultural cooperative societies started killing pigs for the benefit of their members.
14 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUGOSLAVIA
The biggest wine society in the country is at Selo-Banja, about
15 miles from Koracica. The road is partly an absolute track. with ruts varying from a few inches to a couple of feet deep, and partly a high road, sections of which are excellent and sections almost impassable. Selo-Banja is near a light railway running from Mladenovac to Arangjelovac. The society was founded in 1903 by 19 members; each member took one share of 50 dinars for every thousand vines he owned, and the Cooperative Union at Belgrade lent the society two dinars for every dinar of share capital subscribed. This money was repaid by setting aside 5 paras (centimes) for every liter of wine sold. The original share capital was 7,000 dinars, so that the society started with a total of 21,000 dinars. It was four years before the society had erected its buildings and actually started making wine, and 13 wagon-loads of grapes were made into wine in 1907. Each wagon holds about 10,000 kilos of grapes which makes about 6,000 kilos of wine. By 1911 the society had increased to 100 members, and the capacity of the cellars had to be en- larged from 15 wagon-loads to 95. The books of the society were lost during the War, so that all the information prior to 1918 was derived from the recollection of members, except the price paid for the grapes. In 1911 the share capital was about 50,000 dinars and there was no appreciable change up to the be- ginning of the War. The society buys grapes at the market price from members only and does not trade with non-members, and a bonus is paid out of the profits made when the wine is sold. The following prices per 100 kilograms show the benefit gained by the members of the society :
Market price Society's price Dinars Dinars
1911 21.24 30.65
1912 24.65 26.67
1913 21.78 38.68
1914 29J7 44.48
The Austrians had not reached Selo-Banja until October 25, 1915, just at the end of the wine-making season. They seized about 6,000 kilos of old wine, 132,000 kilos of new wine, and 2,000 kilos of brandy. They also seized the society's buildings
SERBIA 15
and continued to work the society, but in their own interest and not cooperatively. They, however, paid for the grapes they used at a very fair rate, namely, 40 crowns per hundred kilos in 1916 and 50 crowns per hundred kilos in 1917. The rate of exchange between the crown and the dinar was quite artificial, as the Austrians compelled the Serbians to take 1 crown for 2 dinars.
After the War, the Jugoslav Government stabilized the crown at the artificial price of 4 crowns to 1 dinar. The value of money had fallen very heavily between 1914 and 1918, when the Aus- trians retired. The society was re-formed as quickly as possible after the retreat of the Austrians and actually restarted work on October 26, 1919, exactly four years from the date of its capture. In that year it made 36 wagons of grapes into wine, for which it paid 185 dinars per 100 kilos. There were 103 mem- bers on the re-forming of the society and by July, 1920, this num- ber had risen to 107. The principal damage done by the Austrians was that they removed most of the small barrels belonging to the society and a number of coopers were busily at work making new barrels.
The society does not confine itself to wine-making, but does a small trade in all kinds of agricultural requirements. The finance of the society is much simplified by credit given by the Union at Belgrade. The usual procedure is that when the grapes have been brought to the society an estimate is made of the value of the crop and 75 per cent of this sum is borrowed from the Union. The market price is then paid for the grapes and when the wine is finally sold the Union is repaid and the balance of profit is distributed among the members in proportion to the grapes supplied. The interest charged by the Union for these short-term loans is 5 per cent and only 3 per cent is charged for long-term loans on buildings. There is a binding rule compelling members to sell their grapes to the society, similar to the rule compelling the owners of cows to bring their milk to Irish cream- eries, and they are also compelled to keep their vineyards in order, subject to inspection by officers of the society. A mem- ber may resign, but his capital is retained for two years as a
16 THE CX)OPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUGOSLAVIA
security against any damage the society may suffer by his resigna- tion; the liability of shareholders is unlimited. Roughly, one third of the farmers of the district are members of the society. The reason for this comparatively small membership is stated to be local political enmity and personal quarrels in the district. It is to be hoped this regrettable state of affairs will not continue; the society as such is quite non-political.
The manager of another wine society at Smederevo (Semen- dria), a town on the Danube about 30 miles below Belgrade, stated that his society, which was founded in 1909 and began to work in 1911, had suffered more heavily than the society at Selo- Banja, as Smederevo was the scene of heavy fighting, in the course of which the buildings were partially destroyed by fire, and finally the Austrians on their retreat blew up a large ammunition dun^, which added to the destruction. They estimated the dam- age and loss involved at 600,000 dinars. This society started with a capital of 30,000 dinars and 25 members and increased to 35 members in 1914. It is run on almost exactly similar lines to the society at Selo-Banja, except that the liability of members is limited to ten times their shareholding. The prices paid for grapes per 100 kilograms are as follows :
Market price Society's price Dinars Dinars
1911 23.10 23.50
1912 23.55 35.97
191S 32.70 53.69
1914 40.77 62.80
This society had just restarted work in 1920. Smederevo was also the seat of a big grain society which was completely destroyed during the War, but its rebuilding was in progress in 1920.
The Markovec Agricultural Society, about 20 miles beyond Mladenovac on the line from Belgrade to Nish, is the most suc- cessful agricultural store in Serbia and in many ways one of the most remarkable of its kind to be found anywhere.
Markovec is a scattered village something like Koracica and Selo-Banja. The Agricultural Society has a two-story building, a rare thing in Serbian rural districts. As usual, the books were lost or destroyed during the Austrian invasion, so that informa-
SERBIA 17
tion about the Society was procurable only from the recollections of the manager and members. All that was to be learned of the prewar history of the Society was, briefly, that it was founded in 1902 by 25 members, each of whom held one lO-dinar share. They sold sugar, salt, coffee, oil, etc. By 1906 the accumulated profits of the Society amounted to 30,000 dinars, 10,000 of which they spent on building the premises where they are at present sit- uated. By 1915 membership had risen to 300. Then came the Austrians, who seized everything belonging to the Society, to the value of about 80,000 dinars, and did not pay one penny compen- sation.
The large amount of goods in the Society dated from the Turkish and Bulgarian Wars of 1913, which had had the result of reducing demand and, therefore, left considerable stocks in the hands of the Society. Before the War the Society did a large business in selling its members' products — maize, wheat, corn, eggs, etc.
The Society did not get to work again until January, 1920, and the turnover for the first six months of that year was 126,000 dinars, almost entirely derived from the sales to members. The only sales made on behalf of members were 6,000 eggs, valued at 1,200 dinars. This was a great falling off since 1915, when they had sold 15 wagons of maize, 3 wagons of wheat and a very large quantity of eggs. The Society deals with non-members, but as there are about 300 members and only 250 houses in the district the non-members' trade is not great. It deals in all classes of the necessaries of agriculturists, including clothes, foodstuffs, seeds and manures, etc. Besides being an ordinary agricultural store, the Society acts as a credit bank and performs the function both of the Raiffeisen and Schulze-Delitzsch Bank. It lends money both to agriculturists on ordinary short-term credits and to artisans, shoemakers, etc., and sells the products of these latter on commission. It also takes deposits, which in 1915 amounted to 15,000 dinars; 10 per cent is charged for loans and 7 per cent is paid on deposits. Deposits up to 1,000 dinars are withdraw- able without notice. The Society has also made arrangements for lendingmoney on long-term loans to help members to build houses.
18 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUGOSLAVIA
In addition to this, if a member dies leaving no grown family to run his farm, the Society itself will manage the farm for a year to give the member's widow or orphans an opportunity of cither dis- posing of the farm or else of making arrangements to carry it on.
Besides the various economic works above referred to, the Society undertakes social work. Before the War it had a read- ing room and library, and although the percentage of illiteracy in Serbia is high * about 40 members used the library and mem- bers who could read would read aloud to those who could not. All the young people could read, and the reading room and library was a useful social center. The Society also employed a doctor to come twice a week to visit the members, and as med- ical service in Serbia are not yet developed this was a most useful work. Both these forms of activity had come to a stop owing to the War when the Austrians looted the Society and had not been reestablished by July, 1920, but the Society means to reestablish them at the first opportunity. They had not yet been able to find a new doctor to pay them visits, but this was occupying their minds. They propose adding a bath-house to their other build- ings.
To finance its various reconstructive schemes the Society ob- tained a credit of 100,000 dinars from the Union at Belgrade. Up to July, 1920, they had borrowed 70,000 dinars and repaid 50,000. The members have so thoroughly acquired the habit of bringing all their spare money to the Society that it never has to borrow large sums for a long period. Before the War the Union used to charge 4 per cent for this accommodation, but since the War it has charged 7 per cent. The Society is governed by two committees, each of three members only — one an executive committee and the second a supervisory committee. The Society has had a little trouble with the local shopkeepers, but is on ex- cellent terms with the dealers in corn, eggs, etc.
This Society is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable in- stances of cooperative success in a rural district in the world, which is in a great measure due to the devotion and skill of M.
* lo 1900 only 17 per cent of the population could read and write, but there has been a great improvement tincc then.
CROATIA 19
Milojavich, the manager, who has devoted himself to the Society from the beginning. He has found it possible to keep complete harmony in the Society. On a few occasions when conduct of a member has been detrimental to the interests of the community, the man is given a warning that if he does not reform himself within a certain time he will be expelled from the Society. But so far no member has been expelled, because, as M. Milojavich has said, "if we expel a man we lose the whole family, and if the father is not good he may have a good son and it would be a pity to lose the son." M. Milojavich's position lends a somewhat patriarchal air to Markovec and it is probable that so successful and active a Society in a somewhat backward country like Serbia must always owe a great part of its success to the presence of one exceptional man. M. Milojavich may be compared with Mr. Paddy Gallagher of Dungloe in Donegal, who, dealing with a somewhat similar population, has transformed his district from being one of the poorest into being one of the most prosperous in Ireland. But such a society as the one at Markovec tends to be imitated in a greater or less degree and so raise the whole tone of the cooperative movement with which it is associated.
With M. Avramovitch as head of the movement in Serbia and a few men like M. Milojavich to help him, it may be said that there is every prospect that cooperation in Serbia will lead, as much as follow, the agricultural cooperative movements in the world.
Croatia
The cooperative movement in Croatia was originally divided into three main bodies: first, cooperation among the Croats; sec- ond, cooperation among the Serbs; and third, cooperation organ- ized by the Hungarian Government. The last named was or- ganized as a central credit society at Agram and Osijeh. It had considerable state aid. According to the Bulletin of the Inter- national Institute of Agriculture at Rome, by the end of 1900 it had formed 271 societies, with a membership of 54,952. The object of the society was principally furnishing credit to facilitate tTie purchase of agricultural machinery and seeds and the purchase of cattle, in all of which works the state came to the aid of the
20 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUGOSLAVIA
cooperator. This organization seems to have disappeared en- tirely. At the Congress of Jugoslav Cooperative Societies, held in Zagreb in June, 1920, this organization was not represented, and any inquiries as to Hungarian cooperative societies were met with the reply that before the War the Hungarian Government had organized cooperative societies as a Magyarizing influence, had given large subventions to these societies, and had in every way tried to induce the peasantry to join them rather than the Serbian or Croatian societies, but that on the separation of Croatia from Hungary the whole of this Hungarian organization had collapsed like a pack of cards, and no trace of it is to be found. It is said that a few individual societies maintained their existence. It was really impossible for a foreigner to judge what actually happened, as no doubt any Hungarian oflicial organization would be greatly suspected after the change of government and would, at the very least, have to lie low for a time.
The other organizations of Croats and Serbs, however, were very active before the War. The political situation was such that both the Croats and the Serbs wished to use every organiza- tion they possessed to prevent themselves from becoming Magyarized, and for this reason the cooperative movements al- ways had a semi-political basis, and were regarded with extreme distrust by the Hungarian Government, which, however, was accustomed to play off the Serb against the Croat and so tried to keep the two sections as divided as possible. The local gov- ernment of Croatia and Slavonia gave certain subsidies to the Croatian and Serb Unions for special purposes and they of course came under the general cooperative law, but in spite of these subsidies and restrictions the unions remained distinctly political and free from government influence.
There are three organizations of rural cooperative societies in Zagreb. The first is the Union of Croatian Rural Cooperative Societies, which has grown out of the Agrarian Bank, a financial institution opened in 1901 for the benefit of cooperative societies. At the end of 1909 this organization included 225 societies with 34,350 members. Besides purely credit business, which amounted to 4,470,000 crowns, it dealt in agricultural goods to the value of
CROATIA 21
1,385,000. The number of societies before the War in 1914 had risen to 293; on December 31, 1919, there were 313 with 42,449 members or an average of 135 per society, and societies were being formed at so rapid a rate that by June there were 362 socie- ties. The increase in societies is solely post-war, as during the War no new societies were formed. After the War it was found that mere affiliation with the Agrarian Bank was not a satisfac- tory form of organization for the cooperative societies, whose business was not by any means credit only, but which were begin- ning to take up all forms of rural cooperative activity. There- fore, the Union of Croatian Rural Cooperative Societies was formed, which is separate from the Agrarian Bank. The new Union is very active and has acquired a site close to the railway where it is building a large store to act as a central wholesale store, both for members' necessities and for selling produce. The store is connected with the railway by siding, and they further hope to set up a factory for the manufacture of fertilizers. The Union comprises 313 societies, which have a total of 42,449 mem- bers. The capital to the credit of the Union to the end of 1919 was as follows :
Crotvns Croiuns
Total receipts 4,671,000 Personal property of societies 1,134,500
Share capital 488,801 Stocks in warehouse 10,000,000
Reserves 1,464,600 Savings deposited 6,000,000
Current accounts 18,000,000 Various securities (bonds, etc.) 628,000
Of course it must be remembered that the value of money has gone down very heavily since 1914.
The second organization originated in the Croatian-Slavonian Agricultural Society, which was an old society founded in 1847 for the purpose of teaching better methods of agriculture, but which in 1911 formed itself into a cooperative society, which con- cerned itself with the supplying of farm requisites and selling the products of its members, though it continues its primary function of trying to improve the knowledge of agriculture by propaganda.
The third society is the Union of Serbian Rural Banks, founded in 1897. By 1909 it had 2,097 societies with 10,031 members. By 1912 there were 354 societies, of which 216 were in Croatia and Slavonia and 138 in Hungary. This Union is not purely
22 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUGOSLAVIA
Croatian, but was formed to be a rallying point for the Serbs throughout all the Hungarian Dominions. In 1914 it had 367 societies, which meant a large increase in the number of societies in Croatia and Slavonia. In 1920 there were about 400 societies with about 26,000 members. This increase was wholly post-war, as during the War the Serbian Union was regarded with extreme distrust by the Hungarian Government and was practically closed down. The increase is in a way greater than appears, as by the Pact of London 10 Serbian societies were lost to Hungary and 25 to Rumania. It is not hard to see why this closing down took place, because both the Serbian and Croatian Unions were re- garded by their founders largely as an organization for consoli- dating the Roman Catholic and the Greek Catholic Slav popula- tion of the Hungarian Empire, respectively, and the Serb Union was particularly anti-Hungarian and was the special object of Count Tisza's enmity. The Serbian Union was so entirely con- ceived with this idea that it tried to form its societies of never more than 100 members, so that each society would be so small that every member would know what the other members were doing, and if they saw any member tending to become Magyarized they would at once take steps to bring him to reason. In fact, the average society had only about 35 members, though in a few cases membership exceeded 100, and one society had 155 mem- bers. In villages where there was a large Serb population the custom was to have several societies and the slogan of the move- ment was, "Serbs, do not give up your land to Austrians or Hun- garians, but work to save and keep it for the Serbs." The society worked on the usual Raiffeisen system, but in addition to this had a compulsory weekly payment of 10 to 20 hellers, which the member had to pay personally each Sunday. The sum thus accumulated could be withdrawn in five years. This rule was partly designed with the object of making the members meet once a week and so keep the unity on the Sunday intact.
As 80 per cent of the population was illiterate, the necessity of frequent personal contact as a means of preserving unity was greater than would be the case in a more advanced community. It was impossible to get statistics of this society for later than
CROATIA 23
1912, as the political situation which rose out of the Balkan War of 1913 affected the societies to such a degree that no information was to be had.
The Serbian population of Croatia is on the whole very poor and had evidently been in a very depressed condition, because it was found that when the society was founded the old men would not join it. The societies were much encouraged by the Greek Church clergy, of whom 128 were members. The membership also included 130 teachers, 184 business men, chiefly small shop- keepers, and 648 village artisans, smiths, cobblers, tailors, etc. All the rest of the 13,000 members were either small holders or agricultural laborers, but owned between them about 40,000,000 crowns' worth of property, or an average of about 10,000 crowns a head, or £500.
All these societies, besides doing their usual credit business, now trade in seeds, manures, machinery, etc.
As has been indicated above, the societies belonging to the Ser- bian and Croatian Unions are principally credit societies, which also deal In agricultural necessaries, and sometimes sell on behalf of their members. Before the War the loans always exceeded deposits, but In Croatia, as in other parts of Europe, an effect of the War has been to Increase the amount of ready cash in farmers' hands, though their stocks, particularly of cattle, have been greatly reduced. The societies belonging to the Union formed from the Croatian and Slavonian Agricultural Societies were prin- cipally buying and selling societies. As In Serbia, there is a gen- eral tendency to increase the buying and selling societies and to make these the important branch of the work, while temporarily at least the credit side is comparatively unimportant. It is pos- sible that the fact that the cooperative societies were used dur- ing the War as distributing agencies for goods controlled by the Austro-Hungarian Government may have something to do with hastening the change from purely credit work, but it should be mentioned that M. Avramovitch, who is undoubtedly the au- thority on cooperation in Jugoslavia, thinks that this using of the societies as distributing agencies has not had any appreciable effect upon their nature, though it may lead to the founding of
24 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUGOSLAVIA
rural consumers societies, as it will have given members the habit of going to their societies for goods. The chief goods con- trolled by the state and distributed through the societies were flour, potatoes, coal and paraffin oil, which cover a large section of the necessities of life. In view of this tendency it is well to describe the only cooperative store society belonging to the Croa- tian Union. It is situated in a small village, Veliki Bulcovec. Bukovec is a small village lying about 50 miles north of Zagreb and about 4 miles south of the River Drave, on the plain which runs straight through Central Hungary. It is a scattered village of about 1,000 inhabitants and is part of a parish with a total population of about 7,000. These figures were obtained from the parish priest, and they are probably approximately accurate, but to outward appearances the village looked as if it could not have more than 100 inhabitants. The country around is divided into vast open fields, each of which is divided into small plots of from a quarter of an acre to an acre. There are no fences be- tween the plots; each plot is owned by a different man, and though one man may own many plots it is unlikely that any two of them will be contiguous. The general effect is a large field of small experimental plots. The chief crops are maize and peas planted together, wheat, barley, oats, beets, lucerne and other forage crops. There is one big landowner in the district with a very up- to-date farm with tractors, threshing machine and a mill, which supplies electric light to part of the village and grinds grain for the whole district.
There are two cooperative societies, one a credit society and the other a store society. The parish priest is the vice-president and general adviser of both societies; the big landowner is presi- dent, but as he resides at Bukovec for only part of the year he is not able to keep in very close touch with the societies. The credit society was founded in 1901 as an ordinary Raiffeisen society. The books and money are kept by the parish priest; it has also a small library and reading room and occasionally procures lec- turers to give talks on agricultural subjects. Before the War the society loaned up to a limit of 1,500 crowns, and in 1920, owing to a depreciation of the crown, it loaned up to 15,000. The small-
CROATIA
25
est loan used to be about 60 crowns, but had risen to 400. The average loan is for three years and the maximum period for which a loan is made is six years. Loans were made at 7 per cent and depositors were paid 5 per cent, but, as the amount of deposits since the War has risen greatly and exceeds the loans, the rate of interest on deposits has been reduced to 3 per cent. Surplus deposits have been lent to the agricultural society, or placed on deposit with the Union at Zagreb. The following table shows the amount of deposits, loans and profit for the years 1911 to 1919, inclusive:
|
Year |
Deposits |
Loans |
Profits |
|
1911 |
Crowns 270,208 304,221 375,847 393,745 519,989 725,532 845,722 1,019,338 1,393,815 |
Crowns 329,299 382,781 396,162 407,032 295,429 223,642 222,219 230,965 250,060 |
Crowns |
|
1912.__ |
|||
|
1913. _ |
4,250 |
||
|
1914. __ |
4,500 |
||
|
1915 |
3,300 |
||
|
1916.__ |
2,600 |
||
|
1917. |
2,000 |
||
|
1918. |
|||
|
1919..._ |
6,870 |
||
From this table it can be seen that there has been a very remark- able change in the proportion of deposits and loans.
The store society at Bukovec was founded in 1903 and was the only store society of its kind belonging to the Croatian Union. The membership was practically the same as the credit society, namely, in 1914, 544; in 1918, 546, and in 1919, 547, so that its membership has not been affected by the War. The premises consisted of a small one-story building with a shop and a yard behind, where there are stores, etc. The shop dealt in general goods, such as coffee, candles, soap, hardware, and the stores in grain, salt, agricultural machinery, etc. The society also dealt in seeds. Besides selling goods to its members, the society buys their grain and other farm produce. It is managed by a com- mittee and manager, who estimated that about 70 per cent of the produce of the members was bought by the society. The wheat
26
THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUGOSLAVIA
and maize are ground in the landlord*s mill and the flour sold to members; the surplus used to be sold to Hungary, but since the War has been sold to Triest. The Union at Zagreb is under- taking the selling of products,' and hopes in time to sell all the products of its member societies, but up to 1920 it had been able to take only a small proportion. Eggs are sold by the society to egg merchants. In 1919 more than a quarter of a million eggs were packed and sold, but no attempt is made at numbering or grading them. The society trades with non-members.
There is an ingenious system of dealing with the profits, though one which is open to criticism, namely, instead of distributing them on the Rochdale plan, 50 per cent of the profits are devoted to increasing the value of the shares and 50 per cent to the re- serve fund. The shares were originally valued at 10 crowns, and the liability of the members was three times the value of the share. By 1919 the shares had risen to 150 crowns, and the liability had increased in proportion. There are obvious dis- advantages in this arrangement, though it has the compensating advantage that members who refuse to join the society in its early days find when they wish to join that they must pay a penalty for their lack of faith in the society. On the other hand, the liability of members increases with the prosperity of the society, and bad bookkeeping might lead to serious trouble. By 1920 the shares were worth nearly 200 crowns, but the parish priest made a pro- posal that the shares should be divided into two, and the members permitted to sell one of their shares; this would mitigate some of the disadvantages of the present system. The following figures show the growth and the position of the society:
|
Year |
Turnover |
Share capital |
Value of shares |
Profits |
Membert |
|
1914.- |
Crowns 398,929 619,733 585,083 746,065 1,292,332 4,170,179 |
Crowns 23,392 |
Crowns 43 |
Crowns 18,945 |
Crowns 544 |
|
IQI/i |
35,360 |
65 |
37,834 |
544 |
|
|
1917 |
|||||
|
191ft |
546 |
||||
|
1919 |
82.0S0 |
150 |
198,307 |
547 |
|
CROATIA 27
The present position of the society is good. It has a share capital of 82,050 crowns; reserves, 96,835; capital borrowed from the local credit society, 206,990; fittings, etc., written down to 500. It has 500 crowns' worth of shares in the Union and 1,500 in the agricultural bank from which the Union sprang, and 9,718 crowns of War loan.
Another society belonging to the Croatian Union is the Dairy Society at Ricica, about 10 miles from Karlovac. This was a credit society founded in 1911 with 38 members. It would be merely wearisome to repeat long lists of membership and figures, but by 1920 the society had 230 members, 139,600 crowns de- posited with it and 118,400 crowns on loan. This credit society started a cooperative dairy. It originally supplied whole milk to Zagreb, where they set up a retail shop, but lately they sold all their milk to the railway administration for the use of the em- ployes. Any surplus milk was made into cheese. Before the War the society made no butter, as Danish butter was cheaper in Croatia than Croatian butter, but during the War butter was scarce and so the society began butter-making. The Croatians eat comparatively little butter. Of the 230 members, about 200 can supply milk from a total of about 600 cows. Only the even- ing milk is sent to the society, as the members keep the morning milk for their own use. The average daily supply was about 750 liters in 1920, but this was a decided falling off owing to a bad outbreak of foot and mouth disease. In 1919 the average receipts were about 2,000 liters. During the War about 300 cows were requisitioned by the government. The society's premises were very small, being only two rooms in what was the gate-lodge of a country house, and had very little machinery. However, the society is expanding rapidly, and has taken over the country house of which it formerly occupied the gate-lodge and is turning it into a well-equipped dairy and mill. There will be also a saw- mill and a threshing plant all run by a 60-horsepower engine.
At Karlovac there is an agricultural society belonging to the Union des Agriculteurs, This society, which was founded not long before the War, was not able to do much until 1919, when its membership was about 200. By 1920 its membership had risen to 500 and its turnover to 5,000,000 crowns. Shares were
28 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUGOSLAVIA
100 crowns each and liability 500. The society supplies only agricultural requirements to its members and does not sell on their behalf. All members have to pay for their goods in ad- vance, so there is not much need for capital. As Karlovac is an important town on the railroad about 30 miles from Zagreb, the societies there ought to flourish.
Another interesting form of society in Croatia is the cattle- breeding society, of which the one at St. Ivan Zabno is a good example. It was founded in 1907 as a result of the importing of a number of pure-bred Simmenthal cattle in 1905 by the Croa- tian Government. The society was organized by a notary in the village, who persuaded some of the peasants to go to Baden to see how cattle-breeding societies were run. The Croatian Gov- ernment gave a grant to pay for the transport of cattle, and year by year more cows were bought, each person who bought a pedi- greed cow becoming a member of the society. By 1920 the society had 400 members and 1,500 beasts. Each member had to undertake to keep Simmenthal cattle only, and such was the value of the pure-bred cattle that they were excluded from requisi- tion during the War. Subscription to the society is 1 crown per cow registered and 1 per cent of all sales of cattle. The society keeps a register of cows born, a pedigree book and a sales book. By a rigorous system of examination and exclusion tuber- culosis has been reduced to 2 per cent among the registered cows. Before the War an official was employed to test the quality of the milk, but since the War this has been dropped, and the quantity only has been registered by a number of controllers, each of whom tests 20 cows and tests the yield once a month.
These examples of societies will serve to give the reader an indication of the form of cooperation in Croatia.
The type of society in Croatia is becoming more varied and the number of societies is steadily and rapidly increasing. The only obstacle to success is the fact that the movement is split up into three sections, each working independently. This is due to the unfortunate history of the country, but now that it is free there is a good chance of uniting all sections of the people into one strong movement. The fact that the relations between the three bodies are of a most friendly nature should make unity easy.
SLOVENIA 29
Slovenia
Slovene cooperation has its chief center at Ljubljana (Lai- bach), though there is also a cooperative community at Celje (Cille), which in 1918 had 109 credit societies, 28 agricultural purchasing societies, 5 wine societies, 4 dairy societies and 1 mis- cellaneous society. Ljubljana is the center of three cooperative unions, of which the most important is the Zadruga Zveza, which was founded in 1900. The Zadruga Zveza is, like the Croatian unions, a very clerical body, and is largely controlled by the priests (Roman Catholic). At the end of 1919 this union had founded societies of which 25 were Raiffeisen credit societies, 40 Schulze-Delitzsch credit societies, 66 agricultural societies for the sale of seeds and manures, 29 dairy societies, 39 cattle-breeding societies, 25 machinery societies, 4 wine societies, 4 building societies and 19 home-industry societies. The union had three local federations. This is, however, an overestimate of the strength of the union, as over 100 of the societies on the list of membership are in territory which has been given to Italy and therefore presumably will not be able to remain members of the union. There are about 375 societies inside Jugoslav territory. Cooperation among Slovenes is more varied in its nature than among the Croats, partly because the Slovenes, being under Aus- trian rule, had more opportunities for development. The stand- ard of education and general civilization is slightly higher in Slovenia than in Croatia, though Croatia will probably develop rapidly now that it is free, and, further, Slovene cooperators do not approve of having a single society which does credit, trading, dairying, and so on.
On the whole, the societies in the Slovene union did not suffer much during the War; the type of society which suffered most was the dairy society, as 50 per cent of the cattle were requisi- tioned for military purposes. There was also a shortage of food- stuffs and labor. The three combined have had the result of causing a great scarcity of milk, and as the price of milk rose, butter-making ceased. There are plenty of calves, however, and Slovene cooperators expect to have their dairy societies at work again by 1922. The table on page 3 1 shows the general position
30 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUGOSLAVIA
of the union since 1900, from which its general position before, during, and after the War may be gathered.
This union does not seem to have suffered from political perse- cutions during the War, as did the unions at Zagreb. In 1920 it was spending rapidly and had taken part in setting up a factory for making agricultural machinery, which was built in a barracks which had constituted the headquarters of Bavarian troops dur- ing the War. The union owns 35 per cent of the capital of the factory, it has a fair-sized wholesale store, and it takes both grain and produce from the members and sells them necessaries of life, such as agricultural machinery, foodstuffs and cloth. This union is not wholly agricultural, as there is a workers-consumers society in Ljubljana with 12,000 members.
The second union at Ljubljana is the Zveza Slovenskih Zadruga, which is an anti-clerical body run by national democrats. This body claimed to be more patriotically Jugoslav than the Zadruga Zveza, and maintained that the clerical party agreed to support Austria until it saw that the Austrian Empire was certain to break up. Whatever may be the merits and demerits of the representative unions politically, the democratic union which was founded in 1907 was much smaller than the other unions. It was not so easy to obtain figures, as the director was away and the books not available. The last published figures were for 1918, which showed 117 societies, of which 70 were credit societies, 7 dairy societies, 20 consumers societies, 3 wine societies, 10 home- industry societies, 2 building societies, and 5 miscellaneous socie- ties. Of these, 44 are now in Italian territory. The societies are chiefly formed of town workers; there arc only 9 definitely agricultural societies, though the credit societies include some peasant members. The majority of the societies are small and include various forms of activity. In Ljubljana itself there are 8 societies belonging to the union, which are : ( I ) a porters society, with 33 members; (2) a consumers society for employes, with nearly 1,000 members; (3) an ordinary consumers society; (4) a poultry society; (5) a sort of a club for propaganda and literature, which is only registered as a cooperative society to avoid legal difficulties; (6) a printers productive society; (7) a
SLOVENIA
31
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32
THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUGOSLAVIA
schoolmasters society for getting theses, etc., printed; and (8) a bootmakers society for purchasing leather.
The democratic union was regarded with suspicion by the Aus- trian authorities during the War, and, as the societies were all formed, like the societies in Croatia, with the object of opposing the Austrian Government as well as performing their economic functions, this is not surprising. The Austrian Government en- deavored to centralize all cooperation at Vienna, and administer the cooperative societies throughout Austria and her dependen- cies from there.
The following figures show the development of the union :
Year
No. of societies
Shares held (10 crowns each)
Total credit and other dealings
1909- 191 1_ 1913_ 1914- 1915- 1916l-
44
160 136 126 123 118 117 117
8,039 8,906 8,426 8,091 7,576 7,565 7,141 7,050
Croums
22,224,640
5,831,536
15,399,924
4,664,568
5,030,253
7,857,774
10,826,719
17,093,338
There is a third union at Ljubljana, which is non-agricultural and is socialistic in tendency; it is called Pravila Nakupovalne Zadruga. This union has consumers societies all over Slovenia. The societies all consist of members of the People's Party of Slo- venia or of the Jugoslav Socialist Party. The total membership is 220,000, of which 150,000 are active members. The societies sell all kinds of goods. Within the first five months of 1920 it had sold goods to the value of a hundred million crowns; it had proposed to set up a mill and bacon factory. Although com- posed of members of socialist tendencies the society does not take part in politics, and a curious feature of it is that the owners of big works who set up shops for supplying their workers are able to become members of this union. The union has 13 centrals which are divided up into about 80 consumers societies. The members are nearly all workers in factories, and very few peas-
DALMATIA 33
ants belong to it. It can not be regarded as purely cooperative, since a number of the societies seem to be practically the property of the owners of big factories. This union was founded in 1919, so that all the information obtained about it was tentative, and it is difficult to come to any definite conclusion as to its functions or prospects.
Dalmatia
The Dalmatian Coast has two cooperative unions, one at Split (Spalato) and the other at Dubrovniku (Ragusa). The lat- ter was the smaller of the two, and in 1914 it had a total of only 58 societies, of which 51 were credit societies, 2 machinery, 3 fishing and 2 subunions. The first union is considerably bigger, with a total of 296 societies in 1914, which had fallen to 256 by 1920, and of these 122 were in territory occupied by the Italians. However, by the Treaty of Rapallo the greater part of this ter- ritory was handed over to Jugoslavia. Of the 256 societies, 182 were credit, 29 consumers, 14 fishing, 11 oil-making, 1 beekeep- ing, 2 wine, 1 mill, 1 assurance, 2 publishing, 1 shipbuilding, 2 per- fume, 3 stonecutters, and 7 miscellaneous, which include 2 for owning ships. It was difficult to get any accurate information about the societies in this union, as communication was exceed- ingly difficult in Dalmatia in 1920. The accounts of the union were also not to be had.^
The usual change in credit societies from lending more than was deposited with them to having larger deposits than loans was noticeable in Dalmatia also. A description of three typical societies at Bol in the Island of Bracu will serve to show some- thing of cooperation on the Dalmatian Coast.
The first of these was a credit society which was founded in 1911. All information before and during the War has been lost, but the secretary said that before the War the society had been
* Split was the only place in Jugoslavia where I found any difficulty in obtaining information. A state of extreme political tension as between Jugoslavs and Italians existed ; the former state that were it not for the presence of American war- ships in the harbor they would be completely at the mercy of the latter. In the islands off the coast political tension was, if anything, greater, and the old saying, "Austrian rule is European, Hungarian rule is Asiatic," is completed by the phrase "Italian rule is Hottentot." To an Irishman visiting the country, the ac- counts of Italian atrocities did not sound very bad.
54
THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUGOSLAVIA
bigger than in 1919, when it had 120 members. The demand for loans had fallen off considerably, so that only 80,000 crowns were lent during that year, while deposits reached 600,000 crowns. The society had only about 50 members at its inception. It has undertaken a certain amount of store business — selling food- stuffs— since the War, and may gradually develop into a store society. This, the reader will have noticed, tends to be a com- mon feature among all the credit societies of Jugoslavia.
The fishing society, which has 44 members, includes nearly all the fishermen in Bol. The fishing is for sardines and mackerel. The former are caught at night; they are attracted to the boats by big acetylene lamps and then caught in nets. The boats are all small and are manned by three or four men, one of whom is a skipper. If the fishermen are in need of money they can get pay- ments on account of fish brought in, and the balance is paid to them at the end of the season. The mackerel are salted and exported to the United States. The following figures show the progress made by the society :
|
Year |
No. of members |
Share capital |
Turnover |
Profits |
|
IQn |
33 32 44 |
Crowns 3,280 3,780 4,060 |
Crowns |
Crowns 2,939 |
|
191^ |
445,636 |
3,816 |
||
|
IQIO |
63,336 |
|||
The wine society, which is the biggest on the Island, was founded in 1903. The Island is partly farmed by large owners and partly by small tenants who hold on the Mezzadria system. The land question on the Island is acute, and, as a result of a land campaign, the proportion of products taken by the landowners from the tenants has been reduced. The members of the wine society are chiefly big landowners, as the small tenants distrusted the society and would not join. This distrust was largely created by the local wine buyers. This society, which had started with a membership of 53, had risen to 91 in 1908, in which year there was a very serious crisis in the wine trade. This crisis was fol-
BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA 35
lowed by the War, so that by 1915-16 membership had fallen to 44; by 1920 it had risen again to 53. The share capital at the founding of the society was only 15,700 crowns; in 1916 it increased to 16,000; the reserves which had reached 13,000 in 1904 had entirely disappeared by 1914. In 1915 the society began to revive in spite of the War. In that year the reserves rose to 17,200 crowns; by 1916 they had risen to 50,000; by 1917, to 300,000, and by 1919 they had over half a million. But this latter figure should be divided by 10 if it is to be compared with prewar figures. Share capital in 1919 was 26,500. A new crisis rose in 1919, as phylloxera attacked the grapes. American vines have been introduced to meet this. The society pays a portion of the price of the grapes to the members as soon as they are de- livered and the balance if the wine is sold. The society always supplied sprays and spraying machines to members, but during the War it also took to supplying grain, fats, oil and sugar, and it continued to deal in these articles. There was a very great de- mand for wine during the War, as a result of which the stocks of the society were depleted. The wine made from the American grape is not liked as much as wine from the native grape. This may be to some extent because the American grape is new, and they have not yet found the best means of treating and blending wine made therefrom. The amount of wine made rose from 985 hectoliters in 1903 to 2,840 in 1913. This high production was maintained until 1916, but in 1918 it had fallen to 1467, and phylloxera in 1919 reduced it further to 537 — the lowest figure since the society was founded.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Montenegro was difficult of access in 1920, nor was there- sufficient indication of there being organized cooperation there to justify a visit, but Bosnia and Herzegovina have an active and extended cooperative movement among the Christian inhabitants. The general problems in these two provinces, which formed one administrative whole, are, owing to historical causes, somewhat different from those in the rest of Jugoslavia. These provinces were under Turkish rule until 1878, when they were handed over
36 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUGOSLAVIA
to the Austro-Hungarian Government for administration, and were finally annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908. The popula- tion is 90 per cent agricultural, and the only big town is Sarajevo, with from 50,000 to 60,000 population. Under Turkish rule there was considerable oppression, which was carried on on lines similar to the Penal Code in Ireland. Any Christian becoming a Mohammedan was entitled to hold land, but Christians who stood by their religion were reduced to the position of serfs. As a result of this a large number of the Christian Croats and Serbs embraced Mohammedanism, so that in 1912 out of a population of 1,962,200, 626,649 were Mohammedans, almost entirely descendants of renegade Christians, as the number of actual Turks in the country was very small. As is natural, the rene- gades were detested by the Christians, but up to the War all the land belonged to them, and up to the annexation by the Austro- Hungarian Government the Christian peasants were literally serfs. It is certain that the Mohammedans will be deprived of nearly all their land, and the burning question in 1920 was whether they should get compensation or not. If the matter were left in the hands of the local government of the provinces there is very little likelihood that the Mohammedans would re- ceive any compensation, but the government at Belgrade may be unwilling to create a precedent of this nature. Of the Chris- tians, about two thirds are Serbian Orthodox and one third Roman Catholic. There is no cooperative movement among the Mohammedans, who are chiefly traders when they are not land- owners, who may cultivate a small portion of their land and sub- let the rest. There are some signs of the Mohammedans form- ing cooperative societies, but there is little or no chance of their being admitted to Christian societies for some time to come. If they are reduced to poverty they will probably be driven to some form of cooperation. As in Croatia, each of the Christian churches has its own cooperative movement, which division was encouraged by the Austro-Hungarlan Government In Bosnia as elsewhere.
The Serbian movement is the strongest and oldest of the two. By 1912 the Serbian movement had 98 societies belonging to it.
BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA 37
The movement is much controlled by the priests, but there is a desire to get the movement into lay hands, and for this reason efforts are being made to train lay managers or secretaries. Of the 98 societies in 1912, only 75 furnished returns, which showed 2,553 members, or an average of 34 per society.
For political reasons, as in Croatia, the Serbs deliberately kept their societies small, and regarded 90 as the largest number per- missible in one society. Of the 2,553 members, 2,409 were farm- ers and the remainder small shopkeepers who usually also have small farms, priests, teachers, artisans and government employes. The capital of the society was 31,226 crowns, and the loans made 485,434. Below is a rough balance sheet for the year 1912 and a list of purposes for which loans were made, which gives a gen- eral idea of the nature of their activities. By January, 1914, the number of societies had risen to 106 and the members to 3,295. On the outbreak of war the Austro-Hungarian Government prac- tically suppressed the Serbian union at Sarajevo and practically liquidated it. But the societies continued to work, though in a somewhat restricted way, and membership fell, so that by Decem- ber, 1919, when it was possible to begin work again, there were only 2,958 members. In 1919 there was a great revival; the union was put on its feet again, and about 150 new societies formed, but the dislocation caused by the closing down and the difficulties of communication, etc., owing to dislocated railway service and general disorganization, made it difficult to get full information about the work in progress.
In 1912 the capital of the societies was 31,226 crowns, and the loans made by societies to their members 458,434 crowns, for the following purposes :
Croiuns
Purchase of cattle 79,478
Purchase of land 90,679
Machinery and implements 17,239
Rent of land 4,086
Buildings 38,306
Cultivation of land 5,584
Sulphate of copper 933
Food and seeds 74,463
Cattle food 9,248
Payment of debts 56,152
Taxes 9,609
Medical service and medicine 170
3%
THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUGOSLAVIA
The position of the societies as a whole on December 31, 1912, was as follows : *
Debit
Owing to the UiUoo and other
bank*
Depoeitt of members
Share* _ , ,-
Rewrre Balance
Total
Crewai
S96,497
111.417
S 1.778
9.840
5,844
Credit
Cr0vms
Cath in hand 31,226
Loan* (at above) 458,434
Grain held by todetiet 10,146
Stocks in hand 6,825
Establishment charge* (repay-
able in 5 years) „ 2,448
Real property „ 20,380
Implements - 5,915
Shares held by sodetie* in the
Union 20,000
555,376
Total 555,374
During the year 1912 the income and expenditures of the socie- ties were as follows :
Income
Crovms
Shares 33,923
Reserve 9,840
Borrowed from Union and bank* 516,952
Deposits 183,747
Loans repaid 205,937
Equipment 328
Establishment expense* 6,629
Interest on loans 41,782
Real property „ 4,287
Agricultural implements 5,147
Shares in Union „
Interest on share capital
Cash in hand „ 6,510
Rent, etc 26,126
Expenditures
Shares
Repaid on loans from Union
banks
Deposits withdrawn
Loans made.
Equipment
Establishment expenses „.
Interest on loans
Real property
Agricultural implements. Shares in Union
and
Cash in hand
Rent „....
Crovms 2,145
120,454
72,329
664,372
7,154
9,078
23,789
24,668
11,062
20,000
4,927
13,732
31,226
36,272
Total 1,041,208 Total 1,041,208
On December 31, 1918, the position of the societies, which numbered 106, was as follows:
Debit
Share capital.
Due to Union and bankt„
Deposits of members
Savings (withdrawable
5 years)
Reserve ,,
Balance
Credit
Crov;ni Crowns
30,602 Cash in hand 90,568
278,430 Loans to members 478,120
251,040 Bonds and scrip 33,631
after Deposits in Union and bank* 71,547
76,446 Grain 1,054
28,289 Fittings, etc 11,732
34,445 Establishment expenses 419
Real property - „ 10,056
Agricultural implements 2,123
Tout
699,252 Total
699,250
'The apparent inaccuracy of addition is due to the fact that hellers have been omitted in all the following tables.
BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA 39
The position of the Union in 1913 was as follows:
Debit Credit
■ Croivns Crowns
Share capital 30,900 Cash in hand 459
Creditors' current account 371,475 Cash on current account in bank 401,676
Owing to Central Bank 468,000 Security 468,000
Reserve 1,545 Printing works 5,884
Balance 5,275 Fittings 1,175
Total 877,195 Total 877,194
The position of the Union in 1919 was as follows :
Debit Credit
Crowns Croivns
Share capital 35,300 Cash in hand 23,135
Creditors 221,359 Loans 439,762
Owing to bank 659,100 Securities 468,000
Reserve 203,276 Goods 8,100
Balance 11,060 Sundries"
Total 1,130,195 Total 1,130,195
" This item could not be verified and has therefore been left blank.
Up to May 29, 1920, the dealings of the Union were as fol- lows:
Debit Credit
Croivns Croivns
Share capital 35,200 Cash in hand 790,832
Creditors 1,683,722 Loans 205,370
Owing to bank (security de- Bonds and scrip 20,000
posits) 663,956 Securities 663,950
Reserve 203,186 Goods 1,156,688
Balance 254,291 Agricultural inaplements 3,510
Total 2,840,357 Total 2,840,357
The Croat union in Sarajevo really began its work in 1904, when the first society was formed. It developed slowly and by 1908 there were only 5 societies. By 1914 the total had risen to 64, all of which were Raiffeisen credit societies, but which did a general business in buying and selling. Their union began with the cooperative bank, which was founded in 1910 with a capital of 2,000,000 crowns, but this was found to be too small to be of much use, and in 1915 they started doing their financial work through the Croat Agricultural Bank at Zagreb. The number of societies remained unaltered during the War. The total mem- bership reached 9,391. The Croats did not make particular efforts to keep their societies small; they varied in size from 14
40 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUGOSLAVIA
members to 746, which was the largest. In November, 1919, they decided to form a regular union of Croat cooperative socie- ties in Bosnia, and by June, 1920, great strides had been made — a new union with 86 societies and 1,500 members was formed. It was not possible to procure figures for the War years, but on December 31, 1913, 59 societies furnished returns, which showed a total of 1,789,739 crowns lent and 1,285,022 crowns on deposit. During the War the societies were very delinquent about furnish- ing returns, as the work of the societies was practically confined to collecting their debts. Deposits, however, were flowing in, and by 1919 had risen to about 5,000,000 crowns. The amount out on loan was not ascertainable, but it is said to be very small. The share capital reached about a quarter of a million. This is an- other example of the alteration in the position of the farmer caused by the War.
Both the Croat and the Serbian unions did good business for their members in selling their crops cooperatively. Before co- operation was introduced, peasants used to sell their crops stand- ing in the fields to corn merchants, who could give practically any price they chose. The cooperative method is that each peasant reports the quantity of grain in his barn to his society. The society watches the markets and waits for a suitable opportunity of selling. Meanwhile, if the peasant wants money he can bor- row it on the security of his grain at 5 per cent and the society repays itself when it sells the corn. The unions are trying to organize the grain-selling on a big scale, but they find this dif- ficult, as the local societies like selling it themselves, and are pleased, just as some of the creamery societies in Ireland are pleased, if they can sell at a slightly higher price than their neighbors, though they would probably get better prices by selling as one unit. There are very few cooperative stores in Bosnia, though the credit societies do a certain amount of store business.
The heads of the cooperative movement are anxious to unite the Serb and Croat unions. The chief obstacle is that both unions arc somewhat clerical in nature, and the priests of the respective churches, who have done admirable work for cooperation in Jugo- slavia, are in many cases secretaries of the societies. Education
INDUSTRIAL COOPERATIVES IN JUGOSLAVIA 41
is not widespread, and there is difficulty in obtaining trained lay managers. Although the fact that the priests have a large measure of control in the two unions has doubtless had consid- erable effect in helping them to overcome their early difficulties and has provided them with a stabilizing and educative element to guide them, it is felt that it will be difficult to secure complete unity of purpose between the two groups until there is a larger lay element in both unions, and classes are being formed for training managers. Once the peasants can be brought to see the full advantages of the cooperative system, there ought to be a big future for Bosnian cooperation, as the peasants have large sums of money which they keep in their houses because they do not yet appreciate the advantages of banking. As a result of this system of hoarding money, many of them lost large sums of money at the conclusion of the War, because on the conversion of the currency from Austrian to Jugoslavian many of the more igno- rant peasants failed to realize the necessity of getting their money stamped with the Jugoslav stamp. The new national spirit, which tends to abolish the old standing differences between Serb and Croat, Roman Catholic and other Christian bodies, should help to strengthen the cooperative movement throughout Bosnia and to improve the general conditions of the country.
Industrial Cooperatives in Jugoslavia and General
Conclusions
This report has dealt so far entirely with agricultural coopera- tion, as industrial cooperation in Jugoslavia is a very small and unimportant movement. There are, however, some signs that the cooperative movement in its industrial distributive form will develop, though for many years to come it is unlikely that it will compare in importance with the agricultural movement. The signs of the existence of an industrial movement are chiefly to be noticed in Zagreb and Ljubljana. In Zagreb there are two con- sumers societies, the first of which is a socialistic society founded in 1910. This society is run on what may be described as purely Rochdale lines. It differs from the ordinary English consumers society in that it is directly socialistic in tendency, and it regards
42
THE CXX)PERATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUGOSLAVIA
the agricultural societies as purely capitalistic bodies, and their movement as part of the "junker politik." The society aims at controlling production, but, so far, has succeeded only in estab- lishing a small boot factory which employs about 30 workers. This factory was opened about the beginning of 1920. The society has 30 branches, some of which are in country districts, but it does no agricultural business. It has a considerable con- nection with the trade-unions of Croatia, though it is not officially united with them, but the leaders of the trade-unions take an interest in the society and in some cases the trade-union leaders are members of the committee of the cooperative society. The society had only 160 members before the War and by 1916 this number had fallen to 64. In 1917 the society began to make progress, which was probably due to the pressure of the War, which made combination to buy cheaply more important than in prewar days. In 1917 it had 763 members, and in 1918, 3,219, in 1919 it rose rapidly to 12,957, and in 1920 it had about 16,000 members. The share capital, which in 1911 was 4,300 crowns, had fallen to 2,400 in 1916, and by 1919 had risen to 669,000. The sales and gross profits for the period 1914 to 1919 were as follows :
Yeai
Sales
Gross profits
1914- 1916.. 1917_ I918« 1919_
Crowns
54,000
42,000
182,000
976,000
10,120,000
Crowns
4,900
8,900
29,000
130,000
1,308,000
The net profits were 7,738 crowns in 1911; then followed four years of loss. In 1916 a net profit of 1,418 crowns was made, and in 1919 a profit of 535,000 crowns, which, even allowing for the decrease in the value of money, meant an enormous improve- ment. The society does not take an active part in politics, but all its members are Socialists.
There is also in Zagreb a consumers society for employes (government, railway, etc.). It was founded in 1919, but did
CONCLUSION 43
not begin work until February, 1920, when it had 8,000 mem- bers. It had already a large warehouse for goods which was well stocked and had bought foodstuffs to the value of 20,000,000 crowns. The shares were 200 crowns each. Seven millions were lent by the government. It is impossible to give any details as to the working of this society, as it had only begun to work.
The third union described in the part of this report which deals with Slovenia, the Pravila Nakupovalne Zadruga, may also be considered as to some extent part of the industrial con- sumers movement. There are traces of consumers societies started by the Socialist parties in Sarajevo and Belgrade, but so far they are not of importance, though they may possibly grow.
Conclusion
The cooperative movement in Jugoslavia as a whole, that is to say, the agricultural cooperative movement, is changed from a movement whose chief object was to preserve Slav independence to a purely economic movement for the uplifting of the South Slav race. As has been mentioned from time to time in this report, there are signs that an attempt is being made to unite Serb and Croat societies in the different centers. Besides this, there is a big movement to unite the whole agricultural coopera- tive organization of Jugoslavia into one big union which is called the Union of Unions. This movement started in 1919, when a congress was held at which it was decided that the Union of Unions should be founded. The second congress was held on June 11, 1920, at Zagreb, at which 12 unions were represented, namely, 3 at Zagreb, 2 at Ljubljana, 1 at Celje, 1 at Split, 1 at Dubrovnik (Ragusa), 2 at Sarajevo, 1 at Osijek and 1 at Bel- grade. A three days' session was held, and it is hoped that the Union of Unions will in time become a center of credit, purchase and organization for the existing unions, but up to the present it is only a body with advisory and moral powers. There seems to be considerable enthusiasm for the Union of Unions and there is every prospect that it will become a very powerful body for the advancement of cooperation in Jugoslavia. The details of the organization remain to be worked out, but where the desire is strong the achievement can not be long delayed. A stranger vis-
44 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN JUGOSLAVIA
iting Jugoslavia can not fail to be impressed with the strong national feeling which the new state has called into life. This manifests itself also in the cooperative movement, and the Union of Unions must be regarded as one of its results. At present, its headquarters are in Belgrade, and its secretary. Dr. Prohaska, an authority on land reform in Jugoslavia, was most kind and helpful to the author. It is impossible to say more about the Union of Unions now, but cooperators in other countries should keep their eyes on it if they wish to follow the fortunes of Jugoslav cooperation.
PART II
THE EFFECTS OF THE WAR ON COOPERATION IN RUMANIA
People's Banks, Agricultural Conditions and the War
The cooperative movement in Rumania began with the foun- dation of the Bancilor Populare, or People's Banks, which were first started in the year 1891. The causes which led to the movement for People's Banks were similar in Rumania to most other countries ; the peasants were absolutely in the hands of the local money-lenders and merchants, and on occasions even the local landlords allowed themselves to take advantage of the ignorance and poverty of the peasants, and acted as money- lenders. A few village school-teachers were responsible for the founding of the first People's Banks, which rapidly increased in number until, in 1896, they held a congress, which so impressed the governmental and landowning classes that, partly to support a good movement and partly to prevent the People's Banks from becoming the center of a political party, the government listened favorably to an appeal for help from the Banks, which found it difficult to get money from the ordinary commercial banks. As a result, the Central for the People's Banks was founded in 1903.
The People's Banks had spread very rapidly, and by 1903 there were no less than 1,027 of them. They not only acted as credit societies, but also as agricultural societies for the sale of manures, etc., and also implement societies. By degrees separate societies were formed for distinct types of work, but in many cases the Bancilor Populare still act as "general purposes" socie- ties, but only where the work outside of credit is small. In 1913 there were :
No. Members
Credit societies „ 2,901 584,632
Productive societies (including machinery, dairy, etc., societies).... 23 1,601
Societies for production and sale 211 11,597
Agricultural (consumers) societies 271 12,340
Societies for hiring land (1912) 364
45
46 THE CXX)PERATIVE MOVEMENT IN RUMANIA
All these societies were under the control and supervision of the Central for the People's Banks, which was a department of the government, the directors of which were nominated by the Ministry of Finance and which had a governmental grant of 20,000,000 Ui, or £800,000. The Central also acted as a cen- tral bank for the People's Banks, and had a staff of organizers and supervisors as well as accountants, etc.
The People's Banks were originally founded under the com- mercial law of Rumania. They could accept members from any part of the country, and the state, through the Central, had only the right of inspecting their accounts. In fact each Bank con- fined itself to a small district. This type of bank has gradually declined in numbers until in 1918 there were only 277. They are unlimited in the amount of interest they can charge on loans. The constitution of a People's Bank is that each member agrees to undertake a certain liability which may not be less than 20 or more than 5,000 lei. He then pays down 10 per cent of the sum, and pays the remainder in instalments carried over two years. The profits of the Bank are distributed as dividends on the capi- tal, not on the turnover.
When the government established the Central a second type of society came into existence. In this type the Central has a direct voice in the framing of the rules, and fixes a limit as to the district from which members may be drawn, and also limits the rate of interest which may be charged for loans, usually to 1 per cent over the rate at which the Central lends. Many of the first type of banks submitted themselves to the control of the Central, adopted its rules, and thus became of the second type of society, which in 1918 numbered 2,643.
The Central is now engaged in forming a third type of bank, with unlimited liability and no paid-up capital. This type has so far only been established in villages where there are a number of peasant proprietors, and in 1918 there were only 46 such banks. They are not making much progress so far, but the Cen- tral hopes to encourage them.
The People's Banks, as already mentioned, do all kinds of co- operative work, but especially selling grain in common for their
people's banks and agricultural conditions 47
members. The chief crops in Rumania are wheat and maize, though there is also a quantity of tobacco, sugar beet, oats, etc., grown. In the year before the war they first organized the export of cereals. The Banks may act in two ways. ( 1 ) Buy the grain at a fixed price and store it, and then sell at the best price they can get, and pay the difference between the price at which they bought and the price at which they sold, less a commission, to the farmers from whom they bought. (2) A more common way is for a Bank to get its members to report to it how much grain they have for sale. The Bank then looks out for a market, and sells the grain, which is kept in the peasant's own store until sold. In this case, if the peasant wants ready money the Bank will lend to him on the security of his grain.
The sale of seeds and manures to members is also an important part of their work, and further, they sell such articles as cloth, soap, coffee, etc. In both their buying and selling operations the district federations of the People's Banks play an important part, as they act as local centrals and wholesale societies. They buy grain from the local banks in the same way that the Banks buy from their members, i. e., sometimes they store it themselves, sometimes they leave the grain with the local societies.
The actual money-lending operations of the Banks are much the same as in a Raiffeisen Bank. Money is lent for productive purposes, which purposes must be stated by the borrower. The borrowing member is not, however, necessarily a peasant ; he may be a small artisan, such as the village cobbler or smith.
The loans are not necessarily, as in a Raiffeisen Bank, on per- sonal or "character" security only, but are often made on the security of a house, a cow, a cart, etc. These points will be more clearly illustrated in the account of the cooperative societies at Oltenitza, which comes later in this report.
The second form of cooperative society which has grown out of the People's Banks is what we should call the ordinary type of agricultural cooperative society, such as societies for the purchase of seeds and manures, for the selling of goods in common, dairy societies and fishing societies; but there are also a number of
48 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN RUMANIA
societies for the exploitation of forests, which are organized on a different basis and are probably peculiar to Rumania.
The third and most interesting form of cooperation in Ru- mania is to be found in the societies for hiring land. In Rumania the land was owned largely by great proprietors, some of whom owned very large estates. It was not unusual for a proprietor to let his land to a farmer to work; that is, to a capitalist who paid him a rent for the right to work his land and who supplied all the machinery, animals, etc., necessary for the work and profit of the land. These farmers were very rich men, and in some cases took the farming of many estates; one man had the farming of half a province. In 1900 some of the peasants, who saw great profits being made by the farmers, thought that by forming co- operative societies for hiring land they could make these profits for themselves, and accordingly they formed societies. Before the War no less than 605 of these societies had been formed. They were brought under state control in 1904.
These societies are, by their very nature, limited in member- ship, as, unlike the Italian communal farming societies, they do not work the land in common, but divide it among the members. A certain piece of land is to be hired — say, 1,000 hectares. A number of peasants come together, and one man says, "I can work five hectares"; the next says, "I can work two and a half hectares"; and so on, depending on the capacity of the man, his capital, etc. Then, when they have enough members to take up the 1,000 hectares, they refuse to accept more. The land is then hired on a lease, usually for five years, and the society is formed for the duration of the lease. No new member can join unless an old member falls out. The society divides the land according to the arrangement already arrived at, but not, as might be sup- posed, by giving one man five hectares in one place and his neighbor two and a half, for the whole land is divided into areas, on one of which it is decided to plant wheat, on the next maize, and so forth. A common rotation of crops is simply wheat one year, maize two years, and then wheat again. Each area is then divided, and each man gets a part of each area, in which he must
people's banks and agricultural conditions 49
plant the crop decided upon for that area. In this way it can be seen that there is a certain amount of working in common of the land, especially as the society owns or hires machinery. In prin- ciple a man may plant what he likes on his plots, but in practice he always plants the crop assigned to the particular area in which each plot lies. Each man, however, cultivates his own plot as an individual, and gets the product of his own plot. The crop is all brought to a central place for threshing, etc. Each man makes his own rick and, when the threshing machine comes, gets his own wheat threshed. The whole arrangement is somewhat like the old open field system which was common throughout Europe in the Middle Ages.
Since the War there has been a great change in the land system of Rumania. The government has confiscated 2,000,000 hec- tares, which it is going to divide among the peasants. The land is being given free to the peasants, and the owners compensated by government paper. As the bulk of the population are farm- ers, the real compensation will come out of taxes paid largely by them. It has further been enacted that no individual may own more than 500 hectares of land. As a result of this very drastic law a great many societies have been brought to an end, and only about 160 societies remain, in place of the 605. This change has been accompanied by a new form of society, which, though not, properly speaking, cooperative, is interesting as a sign of the influence which the cooperative tenancy societies had gained. Since the state has taken over 2,000,000 hectares, it is obvious that the work of dividing it up and satisfying individual claims will take years to complete, especially as the state is continuing the system of giving each man several lots. The land question in Rumania is very urgent and is the chief political question of the day. What with the presence of the Bolshevik forces on the northern frontier and the example of Kerensky's land reform in Bessarabia, now part of the Rumanian state, it is felt on all sides that it is necessary, in the interests of stable government, to satisfy the demands of the peasants without delay. Therefore, the land which has been confiscated is handed over to them at
50 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN RUMANIA
once; but then comes the matter of its division. Here the state has adopted the system of the cooperative societies. Each group of peasants which is to be given confiscated land is compelled to form a cooperative society to divide and work the land tempo- rarily until the state is able to make a permanent division. The word "cooperative" is quoted because ( 1 ) these societies are not voluntary associations, but compulsory ones; (2) they are not free to choose their own committee and officers, but have a man- ager appointed and paid by the state. Even in the case of the old tenancy societies the state sometimes has the power to inter- fere in the appointment of the manager, but only when the society has borrowed money from the Central. This temporary form of society does not, as a rule, own machinery, etc.; it can act as a selling agent for the crops, but seldom does so. There are now over 2,000 of these temporary societies, and the Central hopes to turn them into permanent societies, not for landholding, since that question is, for the time being, settled, but for ordinary agri- cultural productive purposes. It is likely that there will be a big development of cooperation as a result of this.
There has been some opposition on the part of the peasants to the formation of these semi-cooperative farming societies, as the desire for ownership is so strong that anything which seems to put off the day of actual possession is unpopular. There have even been cases where the peasants were distrustful of the good faith of the government and actually approached their old land- lords and offered to buy the land directly. This was, of course, impossible, as the land was already confiscated by the govern- ment. Land reform in Rumania has been partly the result of panic legislation, and the formation of the temporary cooperative societies was largely a means of getting out of the difficulties caused by passing an act without thinking out the means by which it was to be put into force. The attitude of the average Ruma- nian toward his government did not show that confidence in its integrity and efficiency which is to be desired, but in the case of the land confiscation there did not seem to be anything to justify this attitude of distrust. The landlords are satisfied with the amount
people's banks and agricultural conditions 51
of compensation given, but some of them would prefer payment in some more solid form than government paper.
It has been stated that a result of the change of ownership was a decrease in the average produce of the land, but time will prove this true or false.
During the War the German-Austrian invasion did not inter- fere much with the working of the societies. The invaders seem generally to have done their best to preserve the economic life of the country. Here is a marked distinction between the invasion of Serbia and the invasion of Rumania, as in Serbia the whole structure of the cooperative movement was brought to the ground, and when one of the societies, such as the wine society at Selo- Banja, was worked by the Austrians it meant only that the actual physical machinery was worked by and for them, and not as a cooperative society. In Rumania the societies continued to work more or less on their own old lines. This is true of the Austro- German invasion, but the Bulgars seem to have behaved much worse.
The position of a Rumanian cooperative society is admirably illustrated by an account of the farming society at Oltenitza, which has been through all the possible vicissitudes. The society was founded in 1911, with a membership of 152, which, for the reasons stated above, remained unaltered until after the War. The society took a lease of 1,400 hectares, so that the average holding was about 9 hectares. Unfortunately, the books for the years 1911-16 were not available. When the invasion came, the Bulgars found grain to the value of 980,000 lei (at par £39,200), which they seized without compensation. The society is now claiming this as part of its war damage. The Bulgars destroyed all the books, etc., which they could find, but the man- ager succeeded in hiding some of the ledgers, which the president now has in his keeping. When the Germans took over the town, things went better, and the society continued to exist until after the War, when the land reform began. As a result of the land reform the landlord who had leased the land to the society lost a great portion of his property, and therefore the society did too.
SAKTA BARBARA COLLbun
52 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN RUMANIA
Now it has only about 670 hectares of land and 66 members. The remaining members have been formed into a "temporary" so- ciety. In 1919 the land was planted as follows: *
Htctartt
Wheat 176.25
Forage cropa - 12.49
Sugar be«t 52.67
Luceroe , - 48. IS
Maiac 257.15
Barky 20.50
Data 16.45
Rape 4.57
Vegetabica S3.9I
Total - — .- ~ 672.24
The plot described for vegetables deserves special mention. This is a bit of land especially suitable for the growing of garden vegetables, and is not worked by the members, but is let by them in half-hectare plots to other persons (townsmen, etc.). This letting brings the total number of persons who are using the land to about 250.
The land cultivated by the society lies near the town. The wheat had just been stacked, and the different members' stacks were waiting for the threshing-machine. The maize was still unripe, and it was almost impossible to distinguish one plot from another, but a thin line of grass and weeds scarcely three inches broad marked the divisions.
At Oltenitza there is a People's Bank, which was founded in 1904. The system on which the Bank is worked is as described above, and typical of most of the Rumanian banks. Members agree to subscribe a certain (variable) sum, to be paid up within two years. When once the sum subscribed is paid up, a member can withdraw up to nine tenths of the sum, provided that the Bank is in a position to pay it; but the Bank has a right to refuse to pay, a right seldom exercised. Membership can be resigned only on the condition that the member remain responsible, for two years after his resignation, for all debts contracted during his membership.
'They alto bad a vineyard of 24.80 hectares. The rent paid wa* 81,400 lei for the fields and 2,811 for the vineyard.
people's banks and agricultural conditions 53
The loans are made on much the same system as in ordinary Raiffeisen Banks, except that loans are sometimes made on the security of goods and not only on personal security. A member applying for a loan fills up a form stating for what purpose he wants the money. From the Oltenitza Bank's books are taken the following two typical ones: (1) A shoemaker borrows 1,400 lei to improve his workshop; (2) a peasant borrows 200 lei to buy a cow. The loans are guaranteed by one or two sureties, ac- cording to the amount of the loan, the risk, etc., but are also given on the security of goods. In one case a man borrowed 440 lei on the security of two cows and a wagon. The Bank also dis- counts bills. Loans vary from 100 to 75,000 lei, and even more; the limit is fixed by the general meeting.
The Bank is governed by a Committee of nine, elected for three years; each year three members retire, but are eligible for reelection. This gives continuity to the general policy of the Bank, and at the same time makes it answerable to the wishes of the general meeting. Besides the committee, there is a Council of three Controllers, who inspect the accounts and generally keep a watchful eye on the administration of the Bank's affairs. They make a report to the general meeting at the end of each year.
Besides its banking business the Bank acts as a consumers society. It sells seeds, manures, etc., and also a few general goods. There was a very small storeroom, with a small supply of boots and shoes and some soap and hosiery, bought from the English Cooperative Wholesale Society through the Agricultural Federation at Bucharest.
It has a hall for meetings, and on Sunday nights social meet- ings are held, and even plays are given there.
When the Bulgars came they destroyed the furniture and books and burst open the safe, which was lying in the little inclosure in front of the Bank's premises. (The same premises serve as offices for the Bank and for the Land Society.)
It is not possible to give an account of the affairs of the Bank since its foundation, as the Bulgars destroyed all the books, but on December 31, 1919, its accounts were as follows:
54
THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN RUMANIA
Givnua BALAMct-SHur or thi Pioru'a Bank at Oltinitza
Resources
Liabilities
Cash.
Loans-
Capital io District Federf
tioo
Repayment for (oods from
Federation
Debtors' expenses.
Interest due on booua
Chattels.
Stock in hand
Reserve in (OTernment funds
Interest on above*
Capital in the A. W. S..
Repayable expenses.
Salt*
Premises, etc. Capital in Cent
Flag
Suspense.
171,276.61 1,484,466.20
22,325.90
16,640.00 6,635. 9S 21,535.95 11,886.25 19,116.85
26,040.00
4,500.00
1,300.00
4,851.45
1,020.00
39,172.30
10,000.00
3,276.50
10.00
1,849,835.06
Solvent capital
Dividend on capital
Deposits at interest
In District Federation Bank
Special fund for school
Fund for taxes
Interest forward
Flag amortisement
Premises amortisement
Chattel amortisement.
Provident fund
Reserves
For supervision work by
Federation
Bonuses.. „
Printing of balance-sheet ..
Total...
822,046.76
63,000.00
290,080.46
607,936.70
660.65
602.95
6,503.55
792.75
3,619.90
1,050.00
10,625.00
35,119.99
2,624.75 3,300.00 1,867.60
1,849,835.06
*1 /rt -9j4d.il franc at par. Rate of exchange, July, 1920, approximately 140 Iti to £1.
* Not paid for three years.
* A government monopoly distributed by the Bank.
From this it can be seen that the Bank is very active. Nearly 1,500,000 let were out on loan, which is a large sum — £60,000 at par; but the amount of goods on hand was negligible. A total profit of 87,492.35 le'i was made, of which 65,000 (8 per cent) was paid in interest on capital. The payment of varying dividends on capital is a peculiar and unsatisfactory feature of the Rumanian People's Banks.
Oltenitza is the headquarters of a District Federation of People's Banks. It is one of the two Federals in the depart- ment of Ilfov, which is a department 2,230 square miles in area, with a population in 1912 of 681,759. It includes the City of Bucharest, with about 340,000 inhabitants. There were 139 People's Banks in the department in 1918, of which only three
people's banks and agricultural conditions 55
were in Bucharest. The total membership of the 139 Banks was 38,517, of which the three in Bucharest accounted for 902, so that the remainder of the department had 136 Banks,^ with 37,615 members in a population of about 341,800, or over 10 per cent.
The Federal at Oltenitza had 57 member Banks in 1919; un- fortunately, the figures do not give the number of members in the 57 Banks. The Federation has a central office and store in the town of Oltenitza. There was not a very large quantity of goods in the store when I visited it, but the grain-buying had not begun. The Federation either buys grain from the Banks and sells it, in which case any profit balance is paid to the Banks, or it leaves the grain in the Bank's hands until a suitable opportunity for selling arises, and in the meanwhile is ready to lend money to the local Bank on the security of the grain. In 1919 the Federation took grain into its stores to the value of 3,287,467 lei, of which 1,260,- 272 was maize and 337,878 wheat.
The Federation was founded in 1914 by ten Banks, with a capital of 78,000 lei, of which one tenth was paid up. In 1917 it had 30 societies, with a subscribed capital of 134,500, of which 65,792 was paid up; by December 31, 1919, it had a paid-up cap- ital of 186,002. The amount of its loans to local Banks came to 2,619,599; it had 52,560 lei outstanding for loans on cereals in 1919, and made a net profit for the year of 53,331 lei, which was divided as follows: reserves, 5,303; dividend on capital (7 per cent), 14,716; fund for state taxes, 530 ^; disposable balance, 32,782. The turnover for 1920 up to July 17 was 4,698,773.
As may be seen, the Federation made steady progress in spite of the War. This is the more remarkable as the town was first captured by the Bulgarians and then occupied by the Austro-Ger- mans. It still showed some signs of the Bulgarian bombardment. The Bulgarians seem to have behaved with considerable brutal- ity during their occupation. For instance, the local Bank had its safe rifled and some of the books destroyed. On the other hand,
* See Annarul Bancilor Populare, 1918.
* The state takes a tax of 1 per cent on the profits of cooperative societies.
56 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN RUMANIA
there was almost universal testimony to the orderly behavior of the Austro-Germans, except on the actual frontier, where there was heavy fighting and some looting. They seem to have done their best not to disturb the economic life of the country unneces- sarily. In the case of the Federation at Oltcnitza they requisi- tioned goods to the value of 68,748 lei.
The Federation at Oltenitza is one of 45 local Federations, with a total of 2,966 Banks and 630,738 members. In 1913 there were 2,901 Banks and 583,632 members, so that there has been an increase in the War period. The amount of paid-up capi- tal has increased from 107,000,000 to 186,000,000 lei, but the decrease in the value of money makes this figure illusory; but while the amount of loans has fallen, for the first time, from 149,200,000 to 137,800,000, the amount of deposits has risen from 17,540,000 to 60,370,000, and the reserves from 8,970,000 to 17,680,000, which is another illustration of the fact that the farmers of Europe as a whole have turned from a class wanting capital into a class with capital to dispose of, though, as said elsewhere, the apparent increase in the farmer's money capital is to some extent balanced by a decrease in his real capital of stock, etc., and by the want of ordinary commodities and small luxuries for him to buy. Still, the membership of the People's Banks by itself shows that cooperative credit and trading has been most successfully practised in Rumania. The total population of Rumania in 1912 (the last census year) was 7,508,009, and if of these 630,738 are members of the People's Banks we get a very high cooperative average.
The New National Organizations
The higher organization of cooperation in Rumania was originally concentrated in the Central for the People's Banks. It was founded as a government institution in 1903, and had con- trol of all the cooperative societies in Rumania. The movement grew very rapidly, and from 1,027 societies in 1903 it increased to 2,901 credit societies (People's Banks), 23 productive societies (machinery societies, etc.), 211 agricultural productive and sell- ing societies, 271 rural consumers societies, and 364 societies for hiring land.
THE NEW NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 57
The Central, which had been given a grant of 20,000,000 lei by the state, was originally governed by a board nominated by the Rumanian Ministry of Finance; but after the War it was found that the work increased, and as the policy of encouraging the formation of cooperative societies on a large scale was adopted to meet the economic difficulties of the country, the Cen- tral was divided into sections. At the same time a measure of control was given to the societies. This policy has the approval of all who are interested in cooperation in Rumania, as they realize that up to this time it has been controlled too much by the state. The heads of the movement said that they thought state control was necessary in the early days of the movement, as the standard of education in Rumania was low and the people un- fitted for control. Those who disapproved of state control said that the movement had been started by the schoolmasters and more educated peasants, and that state control was merely an excuse to exercise political supervision.
The author does not feel competent to pronounce any opinion on the matter beyond saying that, while state control is bad for any cooperative movement, probably the state in Rumania, by its liberal grants of money, helped to spread the movement among the peasants, who were a much oppressed and downtrodden class. On the other hand, the state, until very recent years, had definitely supported a very bad and oppressive land system, so that no doubt it feared that any peasant organization might be dangerous. The whole question is changed, now that the land system is being radically reformed.
There are five departments, as follows, which were set up on January 1, 1919, though they are under a general supervision.
( 1 ) The Central of the People's Banks, which has a commit- tee half elected by the societies and half nominated by the Minis- try of Finance. Its capital is about 24,000,000 lei, half of which is supplied by the state.
(2) The Central of the Village Buying and Selling Societies, which also has a committee half elected and half nominated. Half the capital is supplied by the state. This Central includes
58 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN RUMANIA
til kinds of rural societies, except banks, such as forest exploita- tion societies, fishing societies, machinery societies, etc.
(3) The Central of the Cooperative Farming Societies, with a half nominated and half elected committee, and half the capital supplied by the state. This is also the department for dealing with the societies for working the confiscated land prior to its dis- tribution and for dividing the land.
(4) The Department of Rural Mortgage Credits.
(5) The Department of Land Registry and Surveying. These last two are purely state-controlled.
Besides these five divisions, there is a Central for Urban Co- operative Societies, both distributive and productive, which is a purely post-war creation. There was practically no urban co- operation before the War. This will be dealt with separately at the end of this section.
The Central for the People's Banks acts as a central bank not only for the credit societies, but also does banking work for the other Centrals (not the urban Central). It thus still plays an important part in the life of the movement as a whole, though its direct control has been withdrawn from the agricultural and farm- ing societies. It helps the cooperative movement in general in another way. It sends delegates to the general meetings of the societies, and it has helped greatly in the spread of cooperative education. Schools have been created and organized by the Cen- tral to teach the theory and practice of cooperation to the mem- bers of the committees and the employes of the People's Banks, and by July, 1920, 30 of these schools had been established, at which about 1,000 students have been taught.
The Central deals only with the Old Kingdom of Rumania, but in the newly added areas of Transylvania and Bessarabia there are cooperative movements which existed under the old Hungarian and Russian regimes. Raiflfeisen credit banks have been developed in Bessarabia, but as that country is still ( 1920) under Russian law, and to some extent martial law, it has not yet come into relations with the Central at Bucharest. The fear of a Bolshevik invasion of Bessarabia was still felt. The societies in
THE NEW NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 59
Bessarabia are grouped in unions, which are independent of the state, and are grouped in a Central Union at Kisinan. Accord- ing to Cooperation in Rumania Integrita, published in 1920 by the Rumanian Ministry of Agriculture, the number of societies in Bessarabia was: 1904, 28; 1910, 253 (245 Raiffeisen credit) ; 1914, 357 (349 Raiffeisen credit); and 1919, 1,056, of which 429 were Raiffeisen credit, 9 unions of Raiffeisen credit, 603 con- sumers societies (probably what we call agricultural societies), and 4 unions of agricultural societies. It can thus easily be seen that the War has had the effect of stimulating consumers socie- ties. The total membership is given at about 600,000, of which about 120,000 were members of the consumers societies. The total of the balance-sheets was : credit societies of all kinds, except unions, 32,600,000 lei; consumers societies, 7,900,000 lei; credit unions, 38,500,000 lei; consumers unions, 3,850,000 lei; small credit banks, 20,000,000 lei.
The Transylvanian societies had no connection as yet with Bucharest, and there was no information to be got about them.
As regards war damage suffered by the cooperative movement as a whole, it is hard to give any estimate. The damage suffered by the Central for the People's Banks has, however, been as- sessed. This, of course, does not cover the losses of Individual societies. The Austro-German Government placed two officers — one a German and one an Austrian — In charge of the Central, which continued to work under their direction. The losses are assessed as follows :
Lei
Subscriptions of cooperative funds to Austro-Hungarian war loans 1,674,700.00
Balance of confiscation by a captain of a district paid at wrong rate of
exchange 947.82
Money paid by order of government to a Hungarian merchant whose
grain had been requisited by the Rumanian Government 112,356.50
Interest on 5,000,000 lei taken for the institution of a credit society {Landiairtschaftliche Darlehnskasse), subsequently liquidated by the Rumanians 197.500.00
German requisition orders were made payable at the People's Banks, and of 20,509,920 requisitioned only 8,000,000 had been repaid be- fore the Germans retired. The Central paid the balance to save the farmers from the loss 12,509,920.80
Total » 14.495.425.12
60
THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN RUMANIA
To this might be added about 18,000,000 Ui to represent the difference between the requisition price and the market price of the goods requisitioned. If this sum be paid it will be divided among the societies in proportion to the amounts requisitioned from them. The whole sum claimed by the Central thus reaches less than 33,000,000 la, which, at the rate of 140 Ui to £1, would be about £235,000.
This is highly satisfactory, as it shows that cooperation in Rumania is in a very strong position and that the War has done nothing to impede the progress and development of the move- ment.
The Central for the Agricultural Societies {Centrala Coopera- tixn SdUsti de Productir si Consum)^ which is the second branch of the old Central for the People's Banks, had, before 1919, that is to say, roughly speaking, before the War and the establishment of the separate Centrals, 783 societies, with 37,826 members, and a subscribed capital of 5,516,020 lei, of which 4,472,840 was paid up.
The societies were made up as follows :
Societies
No. of societies
Members
Subscribed capital
Paid-up capital
Supply and sale.
Common sale of crops.
Bakery
MOls
Machinery- Dairy...
Mining (chiefly lignite)
Various (wine, fishing, etc.). Exploitation of forests.
TocaL
360 52 23 23 26 11 15 21
222
16,078
2,500
1,312
1,364
1,811
592
1,070
896
12,203
Lei
2,500,918 163,780 164,682 220,970 157,140 21,980 189,270 127,620
2,029,660
Ui 2,174,460
45,534 106,713 186,450
68,570
14,640
135,400
145,440
1,594,333
783
37,826
5,516,020
4,472,840
During the year 1919 there was a great increase In the number of societies and the number of members. The following were added :
THE NEW NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
61
Societies
No. of societies
Members
Subscribed capital
Paid-up capital
Supply and sale.
Common sale of crops —
Bakery.-
Mills
Dairy
Mining.
Fishing
Various (wine, etc.)
Exploitation of forests
Total
232 3 1 6 9 1 4 3
182
13,368
140
28
325
426
25
163
201
11,197
Lei
5,260,540
9,450
26,500
100,855
62,440
17,550
74,230
170,600
6,353,688
Lei
1,589,130
2,708
8,450
91,015
11,320
6,225
13,300
55,140
1,448,383
441
25,873
12,075,553
3,225,671
It is thus obvious that there has been a great impetus given to cooperation as a whole in rural Rumania. It should be noted that the increase in nominal capital is nearly three times the in- crease in membership, but that the increase in actual capital is about equal to the increase in membership.
Unfortunately, traveling was very difficult owing to a shortage of rolling-stock and fuel, so that it was exceedingly hard to see much of the work of the individual societies.
The societies for working the forests presented unusual fea- tures, and one at Campulung, about 100 miles from Bucharest in the Southern Carpathians, was recommended as a good example. Mr. Teodorescu, one of the staff of the Central, acted as guide, supplied much information, and was kind enough to furnish many of the statistics given in this report.
The Germans, during their occupation of Rumania, did their best to develop it, for the purpose of getting war material, and employed a number of prisoners in building light railways into the forests. When the Rumanians regained their country they made use of the German works, and, in some cases, as at Campu- lung, formed new cooperative societies for working the forests. There had been a number of forestry societies, but they were all small. In the case of Campulung the Germans had built a big
62 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN RUMANIA
sawmill, which they connected with the main line of railway, and also a narrow-gauge railway, 20 kilometers long, up into the for- est. When the Rumanians recovered Campulung they found 120,000 cubic meters of wood already cut.
The Central for Agricultural Cooperative Societies organized a society for the purchase of this wood and for leasing the rights in the railway and the forest for a number of years. The society is divided into three sections: (1) woodcutting; (2) sawmill; (3) furniture-making. The members are both working and non- working farmers in the district. On December 31, 1919, there were altogether 410 members, of whom only 42 were workers, and of the remainder 242 were farmers and the rest merchants, etc. At the same date there were 254 workers in the society. By July, 1920, there were about 500 workers, of whom about 200 were members. The members can subscribe for any sum from 50 to 5,000 lei, but they are altering the maximum to 20,000 lei. Each member, however, has only one vote, so that the coopera- tive rule is not broken. In December, 1919, the capital was divided as follows: ^^^
57 members holding under 100 lei each — _.. 1,920
127 members holding 100-500 lei each 39,260
55 members holding 500-1,500 lei each 44,700
59 members holding 1,500-5,000 lei each _.. 162,500
Total „ 248,380
The balance-sheet to December 31, 1919, totaled 6,400,148 Ui, of which 304,680 were capital from all sources. The profits amounted to 61,049 lei. There were 2,358,777 lei borrowed on current account from the Central, and 3,150,000 were owed to the Ministry of Forests for the timber. The division of the profits is as follows : 10 per cent to the committees; 10 per cent to reserve; 30 per cent to capital, with a maximum of 10 per cent interest; 8 per cent to cultural and philanthropic work; 5 per cent to war orphans, and 5 per cent to a fund to insure against acci- dents and third-party risks on the railway. The actual distribu- tion in 1919 was: reserves, 6,105; committees, 6,105; interest on capital, 19,961; philanthropy, 831; to workers, 18,314.
The workers get their share as workers, not as members, so that the distribution is equal as between non-members and mem-
THE NEW NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 63
bers. Membership is open to women. The society is divided into two main sections — one at Campulung, which fells and draws the timber and cuts it into boards; the other at Giurgiu, on the Danube, about 100 miles away, where furniture is made. There is a committee of nine elected by the members, and two retire each year.
The average pay of a worker is 40 lei a day, and the cost of liv- ing said to be 300 lei a month. This last is perhaps an under- estimate, as a meal at a second-class restaurant costs 12 to 15 lei.
The forests are at the head of the light railway, which is 20 kilometers from Campulung. The actual felling was some dis- tance from the rail-head, and the logs were floated down flumes or slid down the mountain to the rail. The smaller logs were floated down the river, and the big logs, and firewood which was too small to collect from the water, were taken by rail. A good deal of the handling of logs was done by women, which seemed hard work for them, but they looked as if it agreed with them. The actual amount of forest worked by the society in 1920 was 600 hectares, but they expect to get a further 1,500 hectares. The state makes the stipulation that the society must plant an area equal to that which they cut. There was fairly heavy fight- ing in the mountains, and the houses on the way up to the forest showed signs of damage ; but as no heavy guns were used in this district, the damage was not comparable to that on other fronts, or even at Praedeal, the frontier station north of Bucharest. There was considerable looting in and near Campulung.
Besides the Centrals controlling rural societies of various kinds, already described, there is an agricultural wholesale society in Bucharest, to which both the People's Banks and the other forms of agricultural societies may belong. The wholesale so- ciety is purely cooperative, though its accounts are subject to state control. It was founded in 1908 by 20 societies, and by 1920 had 350 societies, of which 150 are People's Banks. The socie- ties are scattered all over Rumania, and one or two were coming in from the new territories. However, the societies in Hun- garian territories had, as a rule, limited liability, and so were constituted slightly differently from the Rumanian ones, and that,
64 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN RUMANIA
with the difficulties of the exchange with crowns and rubles, made it difficult for them to join the wholesale. It is possible that any societies formed of Hungarians or Saxons would not like to join a Rumanian wholesale. The couple of societies that have al- ready joined are in the Banat of Temesvar. The currency ques- tion was in course of settlement by the withdrawal of crowns.
The capital of the wholesale is 1,000,000 lei, and before the War the share was 500 lei, but is now 5,000. The operations of the society were suspended during the occupation of Bucharest. The wholesale has a central store in Bucharest, where various kinds of agricultural needs are on display and where some peasant products (e. g., carpets) are sold. It also acts as a purchaser of grain, but not cooperatively, as it pays for the grain outright. For the time being the purchase of wheat was prohibited, as the exports were controlled by the state, which only allowed exports in exchange for imports; but it still bought maize and rape seed. It has elevators at Braila,Constanza, and Galatz, and also stores for imported goods. Before the War it dealt with about 5,000,000 lei worth of grain, and if exports were not restricted its turnover in this direction would probably have reached a very high figure. The turnover in 1919 was 100,000,000 lei, and the society ordered goods to the value of £500,000 from the English Cooperative Wholesale Society, and $10,000,000 worth of goods, principally agricultural machinery, from Canada. The Coopera- tive Wholesale Society goods at Oltenitza came through the Rumanian Wholesale Society. This activity on the part of the wholesale is the more remarkable in that the Austro-Germans took all the goods which they found in the society's stores and all work was suspended for three years. The Germans did not pay compensation for the goods taken. When the wholesale re- started work it found that many of the societies had been destroyed, but they had all been revived by 1920, and many new ones started. This information given by officials of the whole- sale is difficult to reconcile with that given at the Centrals for the different cooperative societies.
The society does no banking business or take deposits from societies; but it has a credit with the Central up to 10,000,000
URBAN COOPERATION 65
lei, and as the liability of the societies to the Central and the liability of the members to the societies are unlimited, it is easily able to borrow more than necessary. The wholesale is thinking of adopting limited liability.
Urban Cooperation
Urban cooperation was practically non-existent in Rumania before the War, except for credit societies. Such urban societies as existed were under the Central of the People's Banks. In 1912 the control was transferred to a newly formed Central of Trades, Credit, and Workers Insurance, and so passed from the control of the Central of the People's Banks. By a decree law of February 9, 1920, the Directia Co-operatiei Orasenesti was brought into being first as part of the Ministry of Trade and In- dustry, and later of the Ministry of Labor and Social Propa- ganda. It is governed by a committee of six representatives of cooperative societies (3 of consumers, 2 of credit, and 1 of pro- ducers), with four representatives of governmental departments (one each from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Railways, and the Director of the Institution itself).
The Direction has an office for supervising the rules of socie- ties and a service of accountancy; and it also helps the societies financially, for which purpose it has a credit of 10,000,000 lei from the state, and the power to discount societies' bills at the national bank for another 10,000,000 lei.
The three kinds of societies were divided on March 17, 1920,
as follows: Paid-up
Societies Members capital
Lei
Credit 56 6,560 2,827,000
Consumers 222 37,424 4,301,200
Productive 52 1,100 553,300
By July 10 the number of societies had increased to 64 credit, 295 consumers and 65 producers. The societies are, as may be seen, generally very small, and this is the more remarkable inas- much as the societies are confined to the few big towns of Rumania, and chiefly to Bucharest, which has no less than 142
66 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN RUMANIA
separate consumers societies, 9 credit societies, and 36 productive societies. The credit societies are of the well-known Schulze- Delitzsch type. The consumers societies are usually formed by small groups of men centered around either a clergyman or a fac- tory, and each is jealous of its independence. The fissiparous nature of consumers societies is emphasized by the fact that there are two federations which act as wholesale societies for consumers societies in Bucharest alone, and six others in Rumania. The productive societies are divided as follows: builders, 19; manufacturing (foundry, furniture-making, shoemaking, etc.), 37; purchasing of raw materials for members, shoemakers, etc., 7; societies for selling in common the manufactures of their members, 2.
The productive and credit societies were developing before the War, largely because the big trade corporations were squeez- ing out the small artisans. The state recognized the desirability of helping the artisans, and did so through the state-controlled cooperative societies. The officials of the Direction recognize that the state control is, on the whole, undesirable, but feel that the time has not yet come for the societies to stand on their own feet. The consumers societies were all founded since 1918.
As typical of a consumers society we may take one called the "Rumania," which was founded on July 1, 1919, by 52 members, with a subscribed capital of 3,650 lei. By June 30, 1920, it had 720 members and a paid-up capital of 96,586 lei. The sales in the first six months came to 681,119 lei, with a gross profit of 5,517 lei. In the second six months the sales reached 975,842 Ui; gross profit, 87,341 lei, with other profits (not from sales) amounting to 19,508 lei, and a net profit- of 52,374 lei. The store was just like any small cooperative grocery store in any other country. There was a separate butchers department some little distance from the main store. One of the credit societies has its office in the same building as the consumers society, but they are not connected in any other way.
The two federations which act as wholesale societies in Bucha- rest are the Unirea and the Bucuresti, the Unirea being the larger. It was established in June, 1919, by 17 societies and a capital of
URBAN COOPERATION (iJ
45,915 lei. By June, 1920, it had 79 societies, with a capital of 536,667 lei, and in the last six months had sold goods to the value of 7,585,331 lei, and had a stock in hand worth 2,240,000 lei. It had deposited 800,000 lei with the Direction, and had a reserve of 33,290 ; 6,788 lei were set aside for education and prop- aganda, but so far not spent. However, a paper will be pub- lished as soon as practicable. A pension fund of 13,200 lei had already been accumulated for the workers. The other side of the balance-sheet showed 2,140,000 lei owed to the Direction, 115,500 to the bank, and 170,812 deposited by the societies. The net profit came to 149,241 lei.
Each society affiliated with the Unirea has to pay at least 10 per cent of its capital to the federation, but this only totaled 82,453 lei on December 31, 1919. Each affiliated society has a repre- sentative on the board, which elects a committee of five to carry on the business, and the state has no control other than the exami- nation of the accounts. Of course, the activities of the Direction in controlling the individual societies must give it a good deal of indirect power over the federations besides that arising from the fact that it lends them money.
The headquarters of the Unirea is in a good building, with large storing accommodations, near the center of Bucharest.
The Bucuresti was founded in May, 1919, by 40 societies, with a capital of 20,480 lei. By June 30, 1920, they had 68 affiliated societies and a capital of 201,628 lei. During the last six months they had sold goods worth 5,102,161 lei, and accumulated a re- serve of 20,201 and a propaganda fund of 4,205. It owed the Direction 1,444,000 lei and its bank 421,700, out of a possible credit of 2,000,000 lei. Its deposits from the societies came to 1 10,000 lei. The liability is limited to five times the capital. Its net profit came to 19,921 lei.
The two federations are absolutely distinct, and do not work together in any way, except that the state has given a monopoly of selling the fish caught in the Danube to the cooperative socie- ties, and the federations each gave 100,000 lei toward financing the office for dealing with this business.
The productive societies are all post-war. It is too soon to.
68 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN RUMANIA
tay what they are likely to turn into, but a description of one will be useful. A newly formed furniture-making society in Bucha- rest was interesting. It was a flourishing little society, founded in October, 1919. It started working on May 15, 1920, but was hampered for want of capital, and it had to buy wood from ordinary timber merchants at high prices. It had 9 members, and employed about 30 persons, including the members. Each member put up a share capital of 5,000 lei, and the Direction gave them a credit of 700,000 lei, of which they have used 550,000, or at the then value of money, about £3,920, which was hardly enough to run the business. They bought their premises for 135,000 lei, and spent 102,000 lei on putting them into repair and about 200,000 lei on machinery and tools. Up to July 22, 1920, they had paid 67,266 lei in wages, and executed work worth 130,000 lei. The management rests with an executive commit- tee of three, holding office for five years, and elected by the gen- eral committee of the society, but for obvious reasons the presi- dent actually signs contracts, etc. It will be interesting to see how a management by three works. As is usual in continental co- operative societies, there are also censors, or probiviri.
The rule for the division of profits is 10 per cent to reserve, 10 per cent to the executive committee, 8 per cent to the general committee, and 3 per cent to the censors. Capital is to get such interest, not exceeding 7 per cent, as the general meeting may vote. The remainder of the profits is to go to the workers, whether members or not, at the same rate. There were 12 non- member workers, but the rules allow them to become members. The society was engaged in making furniture for the new Cabinet for Greater Rumania, and the work I saw was really very fine. They had not many private orders as yet.
Another productive society — metal workers — was originally a works belonging to a German, and after the War the Direction got it going as a cooperative society.
Besides the official cooperative movement, there was an attempt made some years ago to found Socialist productive societies. They were a failure, and their failure has made the labor move-
URBAN COOPERATION 69
ment somewhat opposed to cooperation, but a number of Socialist consumers societies were in process of formation in 1920. They were not sufficiently far advanced for any account of them to be of interest.
To sum up, the great characteristic of the Rumanian coopera- tive movement is that it is state-controlled and fostered to a degree unknown elsewhere in Europe and comparable only to India. This does not seem to have hindered, but rather to have helped, the actual progress of the movement, and it was very interesting to see the government actually organizing societies such as the productive and farming societies, which in other coun- tries are regarded as of a dangerously socialistic description. It is not possible for me to judge how far the paternal attitude of the state has helped or hindered the growth of the cooperative spirit. Looking at the matter from an outside point of view, it would seem likely that the movement in Rumania has not the spontaneity which should characterize true cooperation, and that it must lean heavily on the state institutions. On the other hand, the educa- tive work done by the Centrals must be useful ; and I found that, though all those interested in the movement desired its ultimate freedom from state control, even the most advanced thinkers on cooperation in Rumania agreed that the backward state of the peasantry made some outside help and control necessary.
They are looking forward to a new law to unify the legislation on cooperation to mark a step forward toward the goal of free- dom, but they would not like to see the control removed at once, or even in the very near future.
I am much indebted to Mr. G. Mladenatz, a member of the staff of the Direction and also assistant editor of the monthly economic review, Independentsa Economica, in which several interesting articles on the cooperative movement in Rumania can be found.
PART III
THE EFFECTS OF THE WAR ON COOPERATION IN NORTH ITALY
General Organization
Cooperation has developed in Italy in a more varied form than in any other country in the world. There is scarcely a branch of human activity which is not represented in one or another of the hundred and one different types of cooperative society that are to be found in Italy. The Italian cooperators build gigantic palaces and ocean-going ships on the one hand and make orna- mental heads for walking sticks on the other. Corn grown on cooperatively owned, managed and worked farms may be ground in a cooperative mill, baked in a cooperative bakery, sold in a cooperative store and eaten in a cooperative restaurant. Yet, despite these various activities, there are few big cooperative societies in the country with the exception of a few well-known societies such as the Unione Cooperativa in Milan and the Unione Militari in Rome and such leagues as the League of Producers Societies at Genoa. The majority of the distributive societies are small, consisting of a group of a few men and women bound together by some political or religious tie. The manufacturing and productive societies, with a few exceptions, are small, and the farming societies, though in a sense large, are necessarily limited in their scope by the area of land which they are able to acquire. The result is that the study of the development of the cooperative movement in Italy is singularly difficult, and this difficulty is in- creased by the fact that Italian cooperation is divided into politi- cal, religious and social sections which do not work in harmony and which, though each has its own particular federation or fed- erations, are to some extent reluctant to give information which might be useful to their rivals.
Taking agricultural cooperation first, there are three large and distinct groupings. First, there are the socialistic farming societies, which are termed the economic wing of a movement which aims at the ending of private property in land and the so-
71
72 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN NORTH ITALY
cialization of the means of production. Then, there are the Catholic farming societies, which aim at the distribution of prop- erty in land among the farming and agricultural laboring classes. Thirdly, there arc those cooperative societies which are formed by the larger landowning class for the distribution of seeds, manures, machinery, etc., whiph are regarded by the other two groups as being decidedly anti-social and really a form of capi- talist society. Besides these, there are agricultural credit socie- ties, both Catholic and neutral, and dairy societies formed of the cattle-owning farmers, which are largely neutral, though there are such societies which belong to the Catholic party in the northeast of the country.
It can thus easily be seen that anything approaching an ex- haustive study of agricultural cooperation in Italy after the War would be a gigantic task, which would probably take a year's investigation and the results of which would occupy several volumes as large as the whole present work.
Besides these agricultural societies, which are only one branch of the cooperative movement in Italy, there are productive socie- ties belonging to Socialist and Catholic leagues, and there is even a group of productive societies separately organized in a Republi- can league. The consumers societies are similarly divided, so that any one Italian town almost certainly has two, if not three, leagues of consumers societies, besides a number of "wild" socie- ties, which do not owe allegiance to any federation; two, or pos- sibly three, leagues of productive societies, a league or two of credit societies, and a league or two of farming societies, as well as a wholesale society run by the larger landowners of the district around. It may well be imagined that five weeks' study of post- war conditions in Italy serves rather to confuse than clarify the investigator's impressions of that country. This report will, therefore, confine itself to a brief outline of the development of the cooperative societies belonging to the Socialist group in Milan and Genoa, a few scattered facts about some of the farming socie- ties, and a short account of the work of an interesting group of Catholic reconstruction societies for the rebuilding of the devas- tated villages in the area of the Piave.
SOCIALIST AND CATHOLIC GROUPINGS 73
From these and a few general remarks it is hoped that the reader will be able to gather something of the post-war ideals and of the comparative conditions of some groups of societies before and after the War, which may serve to throw some light on some of the recent and startling developments of the labor situa- tion in Italy. But even for this it is necessary to have an idea of the grouping of Italian cooperative societies.
Socialist and Catholic Groupings
All Socialist cooperative societies belong to an organization known as the Lega Nazionale delle Cooperative, which has its headquarters at Milan. All the societies belonging to this league are Socialist; that is to say, all the members of the societies have to belong to trade-unions which adhere to the Socialist Party in Italy, a strong political party with a large number of represen- tatives in the Italian Parliament. Apart from these restrictions as to membership, the societies are not political bodies; that is to say, they confine themselves strictly to business at their meetings. The Lega Nazionale, however, is itself a political body and is in close touch with the Socialist Party and with the Association of Socialist Trade-Unions, so that acting as a whole the movement is decidedly political. The Socialist Party adheres to the Third International and generally speaking approves of the Soviet sys- tem of government. The league itself is divided into three sec- tions : ( 1 ) the agricultural section with headquarters in Bologna, (2) the consumers section with headquarters in Milan, and (3) the productive and labor section with headquarters in Rome. Speaking generally, Socialist cooperation is to be found in the north and northeast of Italy.
These three groups are in turn divided into local consbrzie of which there is usually one in each big town or district, e. g., the productive societies have each a consbrzio at Milan, Genoa, Rome, etc., and are forming them wherever they do not exist. These local leagues act as centers for administration, accountancy inspection, credit facilities, etc., for the societies in their district.
The Catholic societies are similarly grouped. Their head- quarters is the Confederazione Cooperativa Italiana at Rome,
74 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN NORTH ITALY
and the Catholic societies have also their local groupings of pro- ductive societies, consumers societies, agricultural societies, etc. The Catholic societies are strong in the south of Italy and in the northeast, but in the south cooperation is not so fully developed as in the north, and largely takes the form of rural credit societies. There are, however, farming and other societies in the south. Catholic cooperation is somewhat later in date than Socialist co- operation, but is making rapid strides. Socialists and Catholics each claim to have a greater number of societies and members than the other and to be more progressive. It is, however, dif- ficult for an outside observer to form any estimate as to the value of these claims, but the general impression gathered by the pres- ent writer was that the Socialist cooperative societies are more developed and more numerous than the Catholic ones, at least as regards higher developments of cooperation, but that Catholic societies are increasing rapidly, both in membership and in activity, and that if they maintain their rate of progress they will soon rival the Socialist. The statistics of Italian coopera- tion are not satisfactory and it is very difficult to get figures to support or refute any such statement.
These two big groups — Catholic and Socialist — embrace the greater part of Italian cooperation. They are very similar in composition, and the societies run by the two groups are very much alike, as the Socialist cooperative societies are connected with the Socialist Party in the Italian Parliament, so also the Catholic societies are associated with the People's Party (Parti Popolare). In their ultimate the two bodies are very different: The Socialists urge the communization of the means of production and the abolition of private property; the Catholics base their whole social outlook on the maintenance and protection of pri- vate property, demanding, however, its more just distribution. In practice the methods of the two are almost identical, because the Socialists find that they have to yield to the lack of developed public spirit among their members, and, in order to stimulate their interest in the societies, have to pay out to individuals, in the form of shares and bonuses, some of their profits which they would wish to accumulate in their social funds. The Catho- lics find it equally necessary to keep large reserve funds, which
CONSUMERS SOCIETIES
75
are in practice much the same as the social funds of the Socialist societies, in order to be able to meet the usual emergencies of trade. Outside these two groups there are a considerable num- ber of cooperative societies. There is a large group of neutral credit societies and several groups of agricultural societies. There is also the small Republican group referred to above, but this does not seem to be of much importance.
Consumers Societies
The Italian consumers society is much the same as the con- sumers society in other countries, but differs from the English type in that it has the political and religious flavor already re- ferred to. Milan is the Italian town in which the consumers society is most developed. It contains the mighty Unione Co- operativa, the largest consumers society in Italy, and one of the few societies which are non-political, but this society is regarded as very bourgeois by the Italian working classes, and, in fact, most of its members belong to the middle classes. Besides this big society, there are numerous small societies of more or less im- portance. In 1916 there were no less than 49 consumers co- operative societies in the city. The Unione Cooperativa had 104 branches and 15,000 members, a large central store with every kind of department, and it has started a garden city a short distance from the town. The position of the Unione Coopera- tiva during and after the War is shown in the following table :
|
Year |
Members |
Capital |
Reserve |
Sales |
Profits |
|
1912 |
14,526 15,087 15,127 |
Lire 6,343,000 6,295,000 6,357,000 |
Lire 2,732,000 2,426,000 3,144,000 |
Lire 11,089,700 14,896,000 58,482,000 |
Lire 657,000 |
|
1916.„„ |
962,000 |
||||
|
1919 |
1,608,000 |
||||
It shows that membership and capital have remained practically stationary and that sales have increased, though not very much more than in proportion to the fall in the value of money. The collecting of statistics for the other 48 societies would be dif- ficult, but the Socialists made an effort to consolidate their con- sumers societies into a single society called the Alleanza Coopera-
76 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN NORTH ITALY
tiva Milanese, which was founded only in the beginning of 1919, when it had a turnover of 1,016,000 lire in the half year and about 8,000,000 lire in its first year. Membership of the Social- ist society is confined to (a) members and workers of Socialist cooperative societies existing in Milan on July 1, 1918, (b) mem- bers of organized trade and professional unions which have not a confessional character (this excludes members of Catholic trade- unions), (c) members of the Italian Socialist Party, and (d) all societies and institutions of persons admissible under (a), (b), and (c). The object of the society is said to be to substi- tute for the present capitalistic regime "a regime in which pro- duction would be organized for the consumers collectively and not for profit, and to acquire gradually the means of production and sale for the associated consumers, so that they may have in future the surplus riches they have created." Besides these two above-mentioned cooperative societies, there is a large society of railway workers and another of postal employes, the former with 6,000 members and the latter 11,000. The former had a fairly large turnover of about 7,000,000 lire in 1915; the latter only about one tenth of this.
A very interesting development has taken place all over Italy by which the municipal authorities undertake a considerable amount of the work of supplying the necessities of life to their people. Over 200 Italian cities and towns have undertaken this work and most of them began it between the years 1917 and 1919, though there are some traces of it as early as 1912. The system adopted is to form a committee consisting of representa- tives from the cooperative societies and charitable institutions. This committee gets funds from the municipality and from the associated societies, which it uses for organizing a supply of foodstuffs, clothing, etc., which are sold either through the co- operative societies or through stores specially set up for the purpose.
The city of Milan, though not the first town to organize a municipal supply, has developed it more than any other town in Italy. The Azienda Consorziale dei Consumi de Milano did not actually begin work until September, 1918, though there had been a previous society of the same nature but more limited scope.
CONSUMERS SOCIETIES 11
The Azienda is constituted of (1) the Commune of Milan, (2) consumers cooperative societies with over 500 members in Milan and the surrounding district, and (3) legally constituted benev- olent, provident and cooperative institutions, trade-unions, etc. The capital on June 30, 1919, was made up as follows:
Lire
Commune of Milan 2,160,862
Consumers cooperative societies 97,090
Institutions 169,000
Thus it is seen that less than 4 per cent of the total capital was held by cooperative societies and more than 90 per cent by the municipality; besides this, the commune advanced 5,213,052 lire on current account. The committee has six representatives of the commune, six representatives of cooperative societies, two of whom represent federations and one representative of the charitable societies; so the cooperative movement is representa- tive out of all proportion to its investment. There are 38 socie- ties and 69 charitable and other institutions which belong to the Azienda. The following balance-sheet for nine months gives some idea of the amount of the municipal trading :
Debit Capital: Lire Lire
Commune of Milan 2,160,862.25
Consumers cooperative societies 97,090.00
Institutions 169,000.00
2,426,952.25
Commune of Milan (current account) 5,213,062.78
Sundry creditors 4,820,451.57
Secured creditors 85,100.12
Total 12,545,566.72
Credit Capital still owing:
Consumers cooperative societies 36,187.00
Institutions 7,667.00
43,854.00
In bank 669,135.99
Goods in store 5,992.839.3 1
Sundry debtors 4,652,213.28
Securities 3,250,000.00
Materials for packing 64,000,000.00
Building, machinery, tools, wagons, beasts, furniture, etc. 961,956.60
Deeds and deposits of property (of third parties) 85,100.12
12,472,339.30 Balance loss 73,221.92
Total 12,545,566.72
78 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN NORTH ITALY
The Azienda itself owns 60 depots for the sale of its goods and supplies 155 cooperative stores including branches.
The Azienda supplies all the principal necessaries of life to the citizens at the cheapest price possible. During the nine months from October, 1918, to June, 1919, it supplied, among other things, 207,591 quintals of flour, or about 20,000 tons, 122,511 quintals of rice, 20,965 quintals of frozen meat, 8,477 quintals of sugar and 1,553 quintals of soap, in addition to such things as candles, matches, coffee, tinned meat and fish.
Besides the mere purchasing of goods, the Azienda has estab- lished factories for making boots, clothing, etc., and a dairy for supplying milk and milk products. The dairy is run on the most up-to-date hygienic lines and the factories are also well equipped, airy and well lighted, and pay good wages. The goods manu- factured are sold through the Azienda and each has its price stamped on it, in order to frustrate any attempt at profiteering. The government sold a quantity of surplus cloth and leather to the Azienda, which enables it to produce very cheaply.
The development of municipal trading is due to the pressure of war conditions, but the general opinion was that it would be- come a permanent feature of Italian economic life. It may pos- sibly lead to some form of national production, as the Aziendas of other towns (e, g., Bologna) already purchased goods from the Milan factories for their own citizens, and it is not a long step from this to the establishment of jointly owned and worked fac- tories for the whole country.
The consumers' movement in Italy, except so far as its politi- cal and divided nature is interesting, presents no special fea- ture worthy of study. The municipal trading is the one really interesting development. The productive and labor societies, on the other hand, are intensely interesting and have developed in a very remarkable manner. A description of the position of these societies in Milan and Genoa in 1920 may be taken as giving an idea of how they are progressing, but it must be remembered that Genoa is the most developed town in Italy, and Milan the next, as regards cooperative manufacture.
the movement in milan 79
Cooperative Productive Societies
The Italian cooperative productive society is usually formed of a group of workmen who have accumulated a small amount of capital by weekly savings and started to work as their own mas- ters. This form of association is not very new in Italy, as it has long been a custom of manual laborers, such as navvies, to hire themselves out in groups. On the other hand, there have been cases where the trade-unions have deliberately founded such societies and have accumulated funds by a general levy on the members of the union.
The total number of productive societies given in Italian sta- tistics for 1915 was 3,015, of which only 1,884 furnished returns. These had over 257,000 members, so that there were probably be- tween 300,000 and 400,000 members of productive societies alto- gether. The total number of workers employed in industries was about 2,300,000, so that, roughly, one seventh of the work- ing population were members of cooperative productive societies. This shows how widespread the producers' movement has be- come.
As said above, the societies are formed into local federations, the federations of Genoa and Milan being the most developed. The following description of these two federations will give the reader an idea of what to expect from Italian cooperators.
The Movement in Milan
The league of cooperative societies in Milan is called the Federazione Milanese delle Cooperative di Produzione e Lavoro, and has 31 societies belonging to it. These include building societies, ironworkers, stonecutters, painters, printers, porters, cane and umbrella makers, furniture makers, navvies, etc. The three societies described below are typical of well-worked produc- tive societies :
The printing society, called La Tipografia degli Operai, which was founded in 1880, is a large printing works in Milan. This society is somewhat unusual, as it was formed by the Milan branch
80 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN NORTH ITALY
of the printers trade-union, which compelled its members to sub- scribe 10 centimes a week until each of them held ten lire shares in the society. With the fund thus raised, the printing works were established, so that in ei]fect it is the property of the local branch of the trade-union. The control is vested in a commit- tee elected by the shareholders, and the workers do not share in its profits, but the profits are devoted to benevolent and other funds for the benefit of the Milanese printers in general. The workers are employed in order from the rota of unemployed printers in Milan. The society suffered during the War. A num- ber of the workers were called to the colors and its pay-roll fell from 108,000 lire in 1915 to 74,800 in 1916. By 1918 it had risen to 114,000 lire, but the fall in the value of money would more than balance this rise; in 1919 it rose to 231,000 lire. There was a slight tendency to fall before Italy entered the War, as in 1914 the figure was 102,526 lire, but this was such a small fall that nothing can be argued from it. The value of the work done in the same years was: 1913, 217,114 lire; 1914, 194,514 lire; 1916, 258,674 lire, and 1918, 546,323 lire. This shows the immense increase in the price of raw materials, chiefly paper, as the value of the work done in 1916 was over 40,000 lire more than in 1913, though the pay-roll had fallen by over 25 per cent.
The capital of the society in 1915 was 120,779 lire; in 1916, 123,387; and in 1918, 138,576. This was the only society where I succeeded in getting a balance-sheet, a portion of which is repro- duced at the top of the opposite page.
In the year 1919 the amount paid in wages had risen from 109,817 to 231,138 //W.i
The division of the profits is interesting. The share capital of 170,936 lire was divided between the compositors branch and the printers branch of the local union. There were 1,452 com-
*The figure 109,S17 U taken from the balance-sheet for 1919. It does not agree with the figure of 114,137 given in the Origine t lo Sviluppo della Federatione delle Cooperative, quoted above, as the latter figure includes the bonus to the manager. If the bonus (6,000) for 1918 be added to the figure for 1919 we get 231,138. Siniilarly, the figures in the Origine for the amount of work executed are adjusted to allow for work in course of execution, and so appear somewhat higher than the figures in the balance-sheet.
THE MOVEMENT IN MILAN
81
Abbreviated Balance-Sheet of the Printers Cooperative Society for the Year Ending December 31, 1919
Resources and liabilities
1918
1919
Debit Social capital:
Compositors branch- Printers branch.-
Lire
72,400.40 34,968.10
Reserves
Current accounts- Effects to be paid- Net profit.
Total..
Lire
107,368.50 31,218.44
214,565.43
92,256.00
4,286.99
449,695.00
Lire
103,457.65 67,478.75
Lire
170,936.40- 33,761.83
148,222.81
89,342.30'
7,344.91
449,608.25
Credit
Cash in hand
Current accounts:
Bank.__
Clients
405.66 99,557.37
Stock in hand:
Paper, envelopes, etc
Ink, roller, etc
Work in progress
1,920.83
99,963.03
162,190.75 18,666.45
98,381.00 17,568.00 24,788.00
Realizable effects
Machines, furniture, etC-
Deposits
Buildings, etc._
Total
140,737.00 2,489.00
86,626.05 5,684.35
96,000.00
449,695.00
26,256.35 12,843.50 27,895.35
1,777.45
182,226.40;
66,995. 20< 6,831.0a
90,393.00 3,384.35
98,000.00
449,608.25
positors and 1,379 printers, but the former had 103,457 share capital or a little over 71 lire a head and the latter only 67,478 or a little less than 49 lire a head. The net profit of 7,344.9 1 lire was divided according to the laws of the society, as the above table shows.
A second society visited was a walking-stick and umbrella- handle factory founded in 1907 with the small capital of 1,550 lire and 54 members. By 1913 it still had the very small capi- tal of 4,843 lire and by 1918 had only increased it to 9,073 lire. Despite this, the society had an admirable workshop and seemed
82 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN NORTH ITALY
very busy. The turnover of the society had decreased slightly in 1915, but had recovered by 1917, which is curious, as luxury trades as a rule suffered during the War. From 1917 the turn- over showed a steady Increase, but as a balance-sheet was refused it is impossible to give any details.*
A third society for making iron furniture (bedsteads and tables for hospitals, etc.), founded in 1904 with 74 members, had con- siderable difficulty in establishing itself, but by 1908 had a turn- over of 203,463 lire. It did not increase its business much until 1918, and actually did less business in 1913 and 1914, but by 1918 it had risen to 361,854 lire, which, considering the fall of the value of money, was a very slight increase. The pay-roll was 82.438 lire in 1910 and fell to 49,561 in 1913 and to 38,736 in 1916. In 1918 it was only 43,1 18 lire. The capital, which was 5,182 lire in 1906, rose to 22,247 in 1912, fell to 18,631 in 1914 and gradually rose to 38,495 in 1918. The figures are taken from the Origine e lo Sviluppo. A balance-sheet was not pro- curable, so that the above figures are all the definite information obtainable. The last two societies, unlike the printing society, were formed only of the workers in their respective factories, and capitalized by them. Anyone applying for membership, however, must belong to a trade-union of the right "color" (in these cases, Socialist) and must then be proposed and seconded by members of the society.
The above examples, though they do not include the big build- ing and labor societies, are fair examples of the form of coopera- tive productive society found in Milan, and the others, large or small, are formed on similar lines.
The productive societies in Milan are all members of the Milanese Federation of Cooperative Productive and Labor Societies (Federazione Milanese delle Cooperative di Produzione e Lavoro), which was founded in 1903 by a small group of Social-
' I found it extremely difficult to get figure* from the productive societies and was absolutely refused balance-sheets in most cases. This I understood to be largely because the societies were afraid that publication of their position would injure them, though there was a suggestion also that they did not wish the revenue authori- ties to know too much about them.
THE MOVEMENT IN MILAN
83
ists. It did not take definite shape for a year or two, but by 1904 there were 24 societies with over 5,000 members affiliated with it. It actually began its work in 1906 and acts as a central body for making contracts, where more than one society is involved, for obtaining credits, for accounting, inspection, etc. In cases where a contract involves the work of several societies, the Federation signs the contract and divides the work among the different socie- ties. Any profit made goes partly to the Federation and partly to the different societies.
To help in its work, the Federation employs a staff of trained engineers, architects and accountants, but Italian law does not allow these employes to be members of the societies which employ them.
The Federation is not as careful to keep its financial position secret as are the individual societies, and the following figures show how it has progressed since 1908. It is necessary to go back to that year in order to show the extraordinary fluctuations in the amount of work done. From the table it appears that the War had no marked effect on the prosperity of cooperative pro- duction, as a whole, in Milan.
Financial Condition of the Cooperative Federation of Milan, 1908-1919
|
Year« |
Value of work executed or in course of execution |
Paid for labor, materials, etc. |
Expenses of adminis- tration, etc. |
Net profits |
|
1908-9 |
Lire 2,117,662 2,332,885 3,085,401 3,264,852 1,928,801 1,818,457 1,845,186 2,759,364 1,942,078 3,710,621 3,789,658 |
Lire 2,055,538 2,250,324 2,947,495 3,156,737 1,818,511 1,704,706 1,712,912 2,625,264 1,790,647 3,534,148 3,575,556 |
Lire 42,253 76,658 128,281 91,132 92,059 95,742 114,663 121,467 126,770 147,908 168,129 |
Lire 35,605 23,963 26,287 28,138 |
|
1909-10. |
||||
|
1910-11 1911-12 |
||||
|
1912-13 |
30,438 30,030 29,015 25,915 |
|||
|
1913-14 1914-15 1915-16...„_ |
||||
|
1916-17 |
36,641 |
|||
|
1917-18 „„ 1918-19 „...._ |
54,606 63,286 |
'The financial year runs from July 1 to June 30.
84 the cooperative movement in north italy
The Movement in Genoa
Genoa is the center of a very active cooperative productive movement, which is centered in the Consdrzio Ligure delle Co- operative di Produzione e Lavoro. The Genoese societies are many of them very strong and they have undertaken construc- tion work on a big scale. The most celebrated society in Genoa is the shipbuilding society, which owns the largest shipyard in Genoa and does much repairing and shipbuilding work. This society has about 600 workers. It was not possible to get any definite information as to its position, as balance-sheets were re- fused, but the yard looked very prosperous and busy. The society was founded in 1907. It was very small and had only about 5,000 lire capital. According to the reports of the Con- s6rzio, it had 116,015 lire paid-up capital in 1914 and 649,299 in 1918, and the value of the work done had increased from 1,095,325 lire in 1914 to 9,000,000 in 1918.
The coal porters of the port have also formed a large society which controls practically the whole labor of the harbor. It increased its capital from 126,979 lire in 1914 to 332,979 in 1918.
There is also a prosperous society of ships' carpenters.
Besides the societies connected with shipping, there are a num- ber of powerful building societies, which have, among other con- tracts, undertaken the building of an immense hospital for the municipality of Genoa. The societies had tendered for the building of the hospital in competition with ordinary contractors. The municipality offered 7,000,000 lire for the work, but no private contractor would do it for that price. The cooperative societies, however, undertook to build the hospital for 7,000,000 lire less 10 per cent. The contract was tendered for and signed by the Cons6rzio, which, like the Federation at Milan, has a staff of engineers and architects. The different parts of the work — building, woodwork, plumbing, etc. — were then given out to the different societies.
Each society is responsible for the discipline of its own men, but, in order to facilitate the general working of the scheme, a
THE MOVEMENT IN GENOA 85
weekly meeting of representatives from each society is held, at which the work for the coming week is discussed and so arranged that the work of one society will not impede the work of another. The result seems to be satisfactory.
According as the work proceeds, payment is made by the municipality to the Cons6rzio, which in turn pays the societies. The Cons6rzio borrows money from the Cooperative Credit In- stitution to pay the societies in advance, and so enable them to pay their workers and to buy the necessary materials for their work.
In Genoa, roughly one half of the workers in the cooperative societies are members. The remainder are either men who do not wish to undertake the responsibility of becoming members of the societies or men who are regarded as not desirable as members. The societies are careful as to whom they admit to membership, which is one of the secrets of their success. Trade- union rates of wages are paid, and the profits are given partly to reserve funds, party to provident and sickness funds, partly to social funds to be used for the general good of the society, and the remainder to the members in proportion to the work done by them. Some societies give non-member workers a share in the profits. The proportion of profits divided among the members varies from 50 per cent to 80 per cent. Ten per cent is usually set aside for reserves. Sometimes the managing committee gets a small percentage for itself.
A general view of the position of the Genoese societies and their Cons6rzio in 1914 and 1918 is given by the tables on pages 86 and 87.
The effect of the War on the societies was what might have been expected. The shipbuilding and coal-porters societies made great strides, and the other trades which did necessary work (e. g., braziers, electricians) also made progress, but the luxury trades, such as marble-workers, suffered a temporary set- back. From the reports given in 1920 it would appear that all the societies were benefiting by the peace, but no doubt the in- crease in work which came in 1 920 had ended by 1921.
86
THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMEhTT IN NORTH ITALY
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B8 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN NORTH ITALY
There are in other Italian towns similar federations to the ones at Milan and Genoa; a new one was formed in Rome in 1920 and one was in process of formation in Florence. The general impression given by a visit to the productive societies was that the War had not affected them adversely, but on the whole had benefited them. It is much to be hoped that a full investigation of the position and prjspects of the cooperative productive socie- ties will be made as soon as the present industrial unrest in Italy is settled. They form one of the most interesting features in the cooperative world today. Whether the Catholic productive societies and the Socialist ones will ever unite into a federation for all Italy remains a problem of the future. At present there are no signs of such an amalgamation becoming possible, but if it should ever happen, Italian cooperation will soon be in a position to control the greater part of Italian industry.
The Movement in Venetia
Venetia is one of the strongholds of Catholic cooperation in Italy, and Venice is the center of a union of Catholic productive societies. The union is run on much the same lines as the Genoese and Milanese federations, except that it is as definitely Catholic in tone as the others are Socialist. An exception to this rule is a society of lace-makers in Venice itself, which was formed by charitable ladies to give employment to girls thrown out of work by the War. It also made clothes and had a large contract from the Government for uniforms. This society is non-political. A very interesting post-war development, however, is the group of Catholic reconstruction societies in the Piave Valley. This district was almost destroyed during the War, and the villages for a couple of miles on each side of the river are simply heaps of ruins, and the houses farther back from the river suffered from aerial bombardment.
The headquarters of the reconstruction societies is a Consftrzio at Treviso, but the actual administration is carried on in two sec- tions, one at Treviso and the other at Conigliano on the farther or eastern side of the river. The work is carried out under a certain amount of government supervision. The Ministry of Reconstruction pays for the rebuilding of destroyed property,
THE MOVEMENT IN VENETIA 89
though if the owner wishes to build a better building than he had he can add to the sum paid. When the Ministry of Reconstruc- tion sanctions a plan for rebuilding, preference is given to coopera- tive societies in placing the contract for reconstruction. A con- tract based on the contract form prepared by the engineers of the Ministry is filled in by the society which proposes to do the work and is then sent to the headquarters at Treviso, where it is submitted to the engineers of the Consdrzio and when passed by them is sent to the cooperative Banco di Lavoro, which will ad- vance 60 per cent of the value of the contract. The Government pays in fortnightly instalments as the work progresses, but the Banco di Lavoro takes over the payments and repays its own loan, and the balance then goes to the society. The whole pro- ceeding, from the application for reconstruction to the Ministry to the advancing of the money, takes only a few days.
The Cons6rzio itself is governed by a committee of representa- tives elected by the cooperative construction societies, and has a staff of about 40 engineers and accountants. The Consdrzio was organized by the headquarters of the Catholic cooperative socie- ties at Rome, who appointed the officials in the first instance. It then organized the societies, and is now controlled by a commit- tee appointed by them. The impulse thus came from above, but the control now rests with the societies.
The Consorzio is financed by taking 2 per cent on the contracts made by the societies. It also acts as a wholesale agent for the societies and supplies them with building materials, etc. It was financed in the first instance by the cooperative Banco di Lavoro, which is a federation of cooperative banks and is largely con- cerned in helping new societies.
Up to June 9, 1920, the Consdrzio had done work to the value of between 20,000,000 and 30,000,000 lire, and expected to do work to the extent of 50,000,000 lire in the next year. It had altogether about 1,800 houses to build, of which about 1,000 were under construction by the Conighano division, and 800 by the Treviso division.
The following is a description of two typical societies at Fagare and Susegana. That at Fagare was founded in the early part of August, 1919; by May 31, 1920, it had done work to the value of
90 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN NORTH ITALY
500,000 lire. It has 153 members, each of whom must be a shareholder. The shares are 25 lire each, and liability is unlim- ited. The balance-sheet had not yet been made up, but the manager thought it probable that they would have made a profit of about 50,000 lire. All such estimates, however, are very untrustworthy. The laws provide that the profits are to be di- vided as follows: 50 per cent to the members, in proportion to the work done by them, 20 per cent to interest on share capital, 20 per cent to reserve, and 10 per cent to the employes of the society, that is, to clerks, etc. Members are admitted by the committee of the society, but in case of refusal there is an appeal to the probiviriy or committee appointed to deal with disputes. The working day is from 8 to 10 hours, and the wages vary from 1 .40 to 2 lire an hour.
There are three different kinds of workers in the society: laborers, builders and carpenters. The manager of the society is himself a workman who has worked in many parts of the world — France, England and America — and seemed to be very intelligent. The premises consist of a small builders' yard, with a carpenter shop attached, and a small sawmill.
The society at Susegana was like that at Fagare, except that it has auxiliaries as well as members, 65 members and 65 auxiliaries; and, as it was undertaking specially important reconstruction work, it had a surveyor and an accountant of its own appointed by the Consdrzio. The Susegana society was building a large num- ber of houses, and, among others, rebuilding a convent school, which was quite a big piece of work. It has also taken over a small brick works which had been destroyed in the fighting, and was hard at work making bricks at the time of our visit. The furnaces had not yet been erected, nor had the society any machin- ery for making bricks, which were all being made by hand.
The whole work done seemed very good and well organized. It is run on definitely Catholic lines and the societies are looked upon as centers of Catholic propaganda in the same way that the Socialist societies are regarded by the Socialists. The offices, both of the league and of the individual societies visited, gave one the impression of great activity and concentration on the work;
AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES 91
and, however much the societies may talk politics out of working hours, in working hours they certainly stuck to business.
Though this Cons6rzio and its component societies is entirely a post-war growth, it is clear that it is intended to be permanent, and that the Piave Valley, at any rate, will have a very strong cooperative organization from now on.
Agricultural Cooperatives
From many points of view the cooperative farming societies are the most interesting form of cooperation in Italy.
The Socialist farming societies are more interesting than the Catholic ones, as the former have many examples of collective agriculture, while the latter believe in individual ownership and their cooperation is mainly for the leasing of the land which is divided among the members. The headquarters of the Socialist societies is a subfederation of the Lega Nazionale situated at Bologna (Federazione Nazionale di Cooperative Agricole).
The societies are divided into two classes : ( 1 ) those which, like the Catholic societies, divide the land among their members (affitanze divise) and (2) those which practise cooperative farm- ing (affitanze collettive). The first need not be described here, as they are roughly similar to the Rumanian societies. The second are more favored by Socialists, though the leaders of the federation are not doctrinarians and do not attempt to force their views where they are not sure of success.
The land system of Italy differs in different parts of the coun- try, but the most usual system was the mezzadria system, by which the landlord provides a certain proportion of the seeds, cattle, implements, etc., necessary for the cultivation of the land, the tenant works the land and the produce is given half to the tenant and half to the landlord. This system has become very unpopu- lar and is rapidly disappearing. In the district near Florence, for example, the main features of the system have been retained, but a union of tenants has forced the landlords to come to a writ- ten contract with them, whereby the tenant's tenure is secured, and the exact amount of work he is to do for the landlord and the exact amount the landlord is to allow for every beast or be al-
92 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN NORTH ITALY
lowed for beasts that die, etc., is laid down as rigidly as a fixed rent in money. Security of tenure was the chief desire of the tenants, but they are coming more and more to demand fixed money rents instead of the sharing system. Besides this, there it a strong movement in northern Italy for nationalizing the land, and in many cases land has been seized and cultivated by bodies of agricultural laborers. These seizures are called "invasions."
The lot of the agricultural laborer was bad, and as an outcome of a prolonged strike in the district of Reggio, Emilia, a piece of land was secured from friendly owners by a number of laborers and worked collectively by them to provide themselves with work during the strike and the slackness which succeeded it. From this the collective farming societies took their rise. Be- fore the War these societies were growing rapidly and on the whole succeeding well, and during the War the Italian Govern- ment passed legislation to insure the proper cultivation of land, which helped them considerably.
In 1920 the societies were increasing so fast that the federa- tion, which had been founded in 1918 with the special object of looking after the agricultural societies, could hardly keep pace with the work.
The societies are much helped by the fact that a great number of public bodies in northern Italy have Socialist majorities which are ready to let lands to cooperative farming societies. Private landlords also find the societies satisfactory to deal with; they are a solution to the labor difficulties which beset Italian land- owners. Nearly all the agricultural labor is organized into trade- unions, which have done much to improve the condition of the laborers, but which make things difficult for the employers. A result of this is that there are hard and fast regulations as to the hours of work and pay for every kind of agricultural work. The work day is short (6 to 8 hours) and the meal times and rest times are carefully specified. This is possible in a country like Italy, where the climate allows of regular work in the fields, but it would be impossible in Ireland, where it is often impossible to prophesy what work can be done the next day.
The societies, which are usually attached to trade-unions, though separately organized, practically control the labor in their
AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES 93
districts and arrange at weekly or, in some cases, daily meetings who is to work for private employers and who to work on the society's land. Besides their agricultural work, the societies undertake contracts for draining, road-making and other manual work. As the societies usually have many more members than it would be possible to employ on their own land, they become a mixture of cooperative farming society and labor bureau. It is unusual for men to be employed for long consecutive periods on the society's land, but they take turns in working for the society and in working outside it. The foremen, heads and other responsible workers are, of course, full-time workers, but they get a lower rate of pay than the ordinary workers, as a balance to the security of their position.
Under the big federation at Bologna there are district federa- tions, which employ accountants to audit the societies' books and experts to advise them on any difficulties that may arise. As may be imagined, the constant changing of the workers means compli- cated accounts, so that accountancy help is much needed.
The following description of two cooperative farms will serve to illustrate the various points which are mentioned above. Pro- fessor Mami, of the National Federation, was very kind in ex- plaining the working of the farms.
Cooperative Farm at Massa Lombarda, between Bologna and Ravenna : This society farms about 200 acres of land, part of which (about 50 acres) is a fruit farm held from the owner of a jam factory on the mhzadria system. Half of the fruit goes to the owner and the remainder is sold to him. There are 400 members in the society, of whom about 20 at a time are employed on the fruit farm and a small number on the ordinary farm. The total pay-roll in 1919 was about 70,000 lire. The workers get about 20 lire a day. The members of the society include prac- tically all the agricultural workers in the small district of Massa Lombarda, so that any private landowner has to apply to the society if he wants a laborer, man or woman. The society takes contracts for road-making, etc. The foremen are called "special workers" and are employed for their whole time. They are paid 1 6 to 17 lire a day. ( Prewar wages were from 4 to 5 lire a day. ) The special workers are appointed by the manager of the society,
94 THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN NORTH ITALY
who is subject to an elected committee. The committee is elected for two years and one half retires each year. The shares arc 10 lire each. The profits are divided in proportion to the amount of days worked by each individual, who is provided with a small book in which each day's work done by him is entered. The member's work is also entered in a ledger each day, and every week the books are sent to the local federation to be made up. The society has its office in the local trade-union hall, with which it is in close touch.
At Molinella, about ten miles north of Massa Lombarda, there is a larger society, which holds about 1,500 acres of land, of which about 500 is used for growing rice and about 250 for wheat and maize. The remainder is used as a reservoir for water to flood the rice fields, so that only about 750 acres are cultivated. Out of the 10,000 inhabitants of the district, 3,000 belong to the society, so that it has practically complete control of the labor of the commune. This society was formed in 1905, and after some years of struggle and loss was on the verge of ruin in 1912. In this year the members each gave a day's work free, to try to save their society, and a new and enthusiastic man- ager, Signor Massarenti, by reducing the expenses of administra- tion from 23,614 lire to 1,255, brought the society to a sound financial position. In 1914 a profit of 790 lire was made. It was not possible to get figures for later years, but the society is said to be progressing well. It has a well-equipped farm with ujvto-date machinery, threshing machines, tractors, etc. This society also undertakes contracts of various kinds. Signor Mas- sarenti did not like rice cultivation, as he considered it very heavy and unhealthy work.* He hoped to be able to abandon it for other forms of agriculture. He is strongly opposed to any form of divided ownership.
As at Massa Lombarda, the work is done by the members of the society working in their turn, and only a few foremen are permanently employed, but they hope gradually to increase their
* Signor Massarenti is not a farm worker, but is a man who has devoted to the laborers in his district talents which would have gained wealth for himself.
AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES 95
land until they are able to keep their members permanently em- ployed. The society holds its land on lease, not on the mhza- dria system.
Of the 150 farming societies belonging to the federation, about 100 are for collective farming on lines similar to the two societies described above, and the remainder are societies for dividing the land acquired by them among their members ; but even these lat- ter have sometimes a certain amount of land held in common for grazing or some other use which lends itself to collective owner- ship. In the same way, some of the Catholic societies have a cer- tain amount of land held in common.
INDEX
Agram, see Zagreb.
Agrarian Bank, of Zagreb, 20-1.
Agricultural consumers societies: num- ber of, in Serbia, 7; work of, in Kora- cica, 11, 13 ; in Markovec, 16-7 ; in Slo- venia, 29 ; in Rumania, 45 et seq., 56.
Agricultural cooperation: in Jugoslavia, 5 ; in Rumania, 47-8, 56 ; wholesale societies for, in Rumania, 63-4; in Italy, 71-2, 91 et seq.
Alleanza Cooperativa Milanese, work of, 75-6.
Arangjelovac, 14.
Assurance societies, number of, in Dal- matia, 33.
Austria: 4, 30; invasion of Selo-Banja, by, 14-5 ; invasion of Markovec by, 16; effort of, to centralize coopera- tion, 32; annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 36.
Avramovitch, M., work of, in coopera- tion in Serbia, 6 et seq., 19, 23.
Azienda Consorziale dei Consumi de Milano (Municipal supply society of Milan), work of, 76 et seq.
Bancilor Populare (Peoples Bank), co- operative work of, in Rumania, 45 et seq.
Banks: central, of cooperative societies in Serbia, 7 ; Agrarian Bank of Za- greb, 20-1 ; cooperative, in Sarajevo, 39 ; People's Banks in Rumania, 45 et seq.
Barley: raised in Serbia, 9; in Bukovec, 24.
Bee-keeping societies, number of, in Dal- matia, 33.
Belgrade : population of, 3 ; central co- operative bank at, 7; work of con- sumers societies of, 43,
Bessarabia: land reform in, 49; Raif- feisen banks in, 58-9.
Bol, work of cooperative societies in, 33-4.
Bologna, headquarters of agricultural section of Socialist societies at, 73, 91.
Bootmakers society, work of in Ljubl- jana, 32.
Bosnia: area and population of, 5; Aus- trian annexation of, 16; work of co- operative societies in, 36 et seq.
BrSila, 64.
Bucharest: 54; agricultural wholesale so- ciety in, 63-4; work of cooperative societies of, 65-6.
Bucuresti, wholesale society in Bucha- rest, 66-7.
Building societies, in Slovenia, 29 et seq.
Bukovec, work of cooperative store and credit societies in, 24 et seq.
Campulung, work of forest societies at, 6.1 et seq.
Carinthia, 4.
Carniola, area, population and indus- tries of, 4.
Catholic cooperative societies, work of, in Italy, 73 et seq.
Cattle-raising: in Serbia, 10; societies for, in St. Ivan Zabno, 28 ; in Slo- venia, 29.
Centrals: for the People's Banks in Rumania, 46, 56-7; for the Village Buying and Selling Societies, 57-8 ; for the Cooperative Farming Societies, 58 ; for Urban Cooperative Societies, 58; for the Agricultural Societies 60 et seq.; of Trades, Credit and Workers Insurance, 65 et seq.
Coal porters society, work of, of Genoa, 84.
Confederazione Cooperativa Italiana, headquarters of Catholic cooperative societies, 73-4.
Consbrzio, work of, 73, 84—5, 89 et seq.
Constantinople, 10.
Constanza, 64.
Consumers societies: work of, at Mlade- novac, 10-11; in Slovenia, 30 et seq,; in Dalmatia, 33 ; "Rumania," 66 ; in Italy, 72-3 ; 75.
Cotton, raised in Serbia, 9.
Credit: need of, in Serbia before War, 8; given by Cooperative Union of Belgrade, IS, 18.
Credit societies: work of, in Serbia, 7; in Koracica, 11-2; in Agram and Osijeh, 19-20; in Bukovec, 24 et seq.; in Slovenia, 29 et seq.; in Dalmatia, 33; in Bol, 33-4; in Rumania, 45 et seq., 56.
Croatia: area, population and indus- tries of, 4; types of cooperative socie- ties in, 6, 20 et seq.
Croatian-Slovenian Agricultural Society, 21.
Dairies (cooperative): in Serbia, 7; at Ricica, 27; in Slovenia, 29 et seq.
Dalmatia: area, population of, 4; work of cooperative societies in, 33 ^/ seq.
Distributive societies, number of, in Ser- bia, 7.
Duhrovniku, cooperative union of, 33.
Fagare, work of reconstruction society at, 89-90.
97
98
INDEX
Farming Mdetiea: at Oltenitta, Sl>2; io Italy, 91 tt ttq.
Federation: work of, io Rumania, 55; io Milan, tS.
Fiahing aodetiet, in Dalmatia, 33-4.
Forest aodetiea, work of, at Campulung, 61-2.
France, cooperative movement in, 1.
Furniture-making tocietiet: in Bucha- rest, 6S; io Milan, 82.
Galatx. 64.
Genoa: productive and labor todeties in, 7S-9, 14-5 ; financial condition of cooperative aocietiea of (1914-18), 86-7.
Giurgiu, 6S.
Goritzia, 4.
Herzegovina: area and population of, 5; cooperative sodetiet of, 36 et seq.
Home industry sodetiea, work of, in Slo- venia 29 et seq,
Hungary, 22, 26.
Ilfov, 54. latria, 4.
Italy, character of cooperation in, 2; work of cooperative societies of, 71 ei seq.
Jugoslavia, character and work of co- operative societies in, 2 et seq. See also Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Dal- matia and Bosnia and Herzegovnia.
Karlovac, work of agricultural society
at, 27-8. Kisinan, Central Union at, 59. Klagenfurt, plebiscite for possession of,
4. Koradca, cooperative sodeties in, 11 et
seq.
Land Registry and Surveying, Depart- 'nent of, in Rumania, 58.
Land system: of Bessarabia, 49; of Rumania, 49-50; of Italy, 91-2.
League of Producers Sodeties, work of, in Genoa, 71.
Lega Nazionale delle Cooperative, 73.
Libraries: provided by Markovec Agri- cultural Sodety, 18; by Bukovec Credit Sodety, 24.
Livestodc insurance sodeties, in Serbia, 7.
Ljubljana (Laibach) : capital of Car- niola, 4; cooperative sodeties in, 29 et seq.
lyoans: to cooperative sodeties, by cen- tral bank at Belgrade, 7; to coopera- tive sodeties by Cooperative Union of Belgrade, 14; by Markovec Agricul- tural Soidety to members, 17; by Bukovec Credit Society, 24-5; by Bol
Cooperative Sodety, 34 ; by Central of Rumania, 46-7; by People's Bank at Oltenitza, 53.
Machinery societies: in Serbia, 7; work of, in Slovenia, 29; in Dalmatia, 33; in Rumania, 56.
Maize: raised in Serbia, 9; in Bukovec, 24; in Rumania, 47.
Mami, Professor, 93.
Markovec: invasion of, by Austria, 16; work of agricultural society in, 16 et seq.
Massarenti, 94.
Medical treatment, given by Markovec Society, to members, 18.
Mezzadria system (land system), in Italy, 91 et seq.
Milan: Sodalist consumers section head- quarters in, 73 ; development of con- sumers societies in, 75 ; system of municipal supply in, 76-7; productive societies in, 78 et seq.
Mill sodeties, number of, in Dalmatia, 33.
Milojavich, M., manager of Markovec Agricultural Society, 19.
Mladenatz, G., 69.
Mladenovac, work of cooperative socie- ties in, 10-11, 13.
Monopolies, Serbian government, of salt and tobacco, 9.
Montenegro, 35.
Mortgage Credits, Department of Rural, in Rumania, 58.
Municipal supply, system of, in Milan, 76-7.
Nish, 10, 16.
Oats: raised in Serbia, 9; in Bukovec, 24; in Rumania, 47.
Oil-making societies, number of, in Dal- matia, 33.
Oltenitza: farming sodety at, 51-2; Peo- ple's Bank at, 52 et seq.; Federation at, 56.
Osijeh, credit sodiety in, 19-20.
People's Bank: of Rumania, 45 et seq.; losses of, due to War, 59.
Perfume sodeties, number of, in Dal- matia, 33.
Plums, raised in Serbia, 9.
Population: of Serbia, 3; of Slavonia and Croatia, 4; of Carinthia and Car- niola, 4; of Dalmatia, 4; of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 5 ; of Rumania, 56.
Porters society, in Ljubljana, 30.
Poultry sodety, in Ljubljana, 30.
Pravila Nakupovalne Zadruga, coopera- tive union at Ljubljana, 32-3 ; 43.
Printers productive societies: work of, in Ljubljana, 30; development of, in Milan, 79 et seq.
INDEX
99
Productive socieries, types of, in Italy, 72-3 ; 79 et seq.
Profits: of Bukovec cooperative societies (i911-19), 25-6; of Zagreb consum- ers society (1914-19), 42; of Central for Agricultural Cooperative Socie- ties, 62; division of, of printers socie- ty of Milan, 80-1.
Prohaska, Dr., of Rumania, secretary of Union of Unions, 44.
Publishing societies, number of, in Dal- matia, 33.
Raiifeisen banks and credit societies: in Serbia, 5, 17; in Croatia, 22; in Slo- venia, 29 ; in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 39 ; in Bessarabia, 58-9 ; in Rumania, 59.
Railroads, condition of, in Serbia, 9-10.
Reconstruction societies, of Venetia, 88-9.
Religion: of Serbia, 3; of Slavonia and Croatia, 4; of Carinthia and Carniola, 4; of Dalmatia, 4; of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 5.
Ricica, dairy society at, 27.
Rochdale plan, 26; used by Zagreb co- operative society, 41.
Rome: 89; Socialist productive section headquarters in, 73,
Rumania: character of cooperative movement in, 2; work of cooperative societies in, 45 et seq.
Rye, raised in Serbia, 9,
St. Ivan Zabno, cattle-breeding society at, 28.
Sarajevo, 36-7 ; Croat cooperative union at, 39, 43.
Schools, organized by Central of Ru- mania, 58.
Schoolmasters society, work of, in Ljubljana, 32.
Schulze-Delitzsch : bank, 17; coopera- tive societies in Slovenia, 29 ; in Ru- mania, 66.
Selo-Banja, Austrian invasion of, 14-15 ; wine society at, 14 et seq.
Serbia: area, population and industries of, 3-4; development of cooperative societies of, 7; reorganization of co- operative movement in, 8 ; crops of, 9 ; work of cooperative societies of, 10 et seq.
Shipbuilding society: number of, in Dal- matia, 33 ; of Genoa, 84.
Silk, produced in Serbia, 9.
Slavonia: area, population and indus- tries of, 4.
Slovenia: types of cooperative societies in, 6 ; work and development of co- operative societies of, 29 et seq.
Smederevo, work of wine society in, 16.
Social service: by Markovec Agricultural
Society, 18; by People's Bank at 01- tenitza, 53.
Socialist societies, in Rumania, 69; in Italy, 73 et seq.
Split (Spalato), capital of Dalmatia, 4; cooperative union at, 33.
Stonecutters societies, in Dalmatia, 33.
Store societies, in Bukovec, 24 et seq.
Styria, 4.
Supply societies: formation of, in Ser- bia, 8; in Koracica, 11.
Susegana, work of reconstruction society ar, 89-90.
Switzerland, cooperative movement in, 1.
Temesvar, 3, 64.
Threshing society, work of, in Koracica,
11-2. Tisza, Count, 22. Transport, condition of, in Serbia, 8 et
seq. Transylvania, 58-9.
Treaties: of Berlin, 3; of Rapallo, 4, 33. Treviso, headquarters of reconstruction
societies in, 88. Triest, 26.
Unione Cooperativa, of Milan, 71, 75.
Unione Miiitari, of Rome, 71.
Union of Croatian Rural Cooperative
Societies, in Zagreb, 20-1. Union of Serbian Cooperative Societies
of Belgrade : object of, 9 ; loans by, 14 ;
credit given by, 15 ; credit extended to
Markovec Agricultural Society by, 18. Union of Serbian Rural Banks, 21-2. Union of Unions, formation of, 43-4. Unirea, wholesale society in Bucharest,
66-7. Urban societies, 65 et seq.
Venetia, work of Catholic productive societies in, 88 ^/ seq.
Walking stick and umbrella handle so- ciety, work of, 81-2.
Wheat: raised in Serbia, 9; in Buko- vec, 24; in Rumania, 47.
Wholesale societies, in Bucharest, 66 et seq.
W'.ne societies: in Serbia, 7; in Selo- Banja, 14-5; in Smederevo, 16; in Slo- venia, 29 et seq.; in Dalmatia, 33 et seq.
Zadruga Zveza, cooperative union of Ljubljana, 29-30.
Zagreb (Agram) : 24; capital of Sla- vonia and Croatia, 4—5 ; congress of cooperative societies at, 20, 43 ; work of cooperative societies of, 20-1, 41-2; Agrarian Bank at, 20-1.
Zara, Italian control of, 4.
Zveza Slovenskih Zadruga, cooperative- union of Ljubljana, 30.
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