l6 RUSSIA - CO-OPERATION AND ASSOCIATION 



In a period of hardly a few years the activity of the zemstvos notably 

 improved flax growing. We must insist on this point in order that the full 

 importance of the work of the Central Union of Flax Growers may be under- 

 stood. 



But if relatively much has been done to improve flax growing hardly 

 anything has on the other hand been done to improve trade in this product. 

 This necessarily impeded progress in flax growing which largely' depends on 

 the foreign sale. The linen fibre produced in Russia represents 82.7 per 

 cent, of the world's total yield, 6,942,000 out 7,843,000 quintals (i). So enor- 

 mous a quantity cannot be absorbed even partially by Russian industry 

 which deals altogether with only 2,080,000 quintals of the fibre. The re- 

 mainder — namely 67.6 per cent. — must be exported. Thus flax growing 

 necessarily depends on the development of foreign trade. 



Until the Central Union of Flax Growers was organized trade in this 

 product was much below the normal. The peasant grower lost a sufficiently 

 large part of his rightful profit to middlemen, and often he was hardly able 

 to cover the cost he had to incur in treating the fibre. 



It was not until 1910 that various attempts were first made in some di- 

 stricts to organize the sale of flax rationally, but as usual they were iso- 

 lated. Thus in the province of Emissejsk in Siberia the local administra- 

 tive for interior colonization began to offer to villages producing flax its 

 help in selling the fibre. It advanced part of the price of the flax entrusted 

 to it by the peasants, sent this to the factories, and paid the remainder of the 

 price when payment had been received from the factories. But the sum of 

 which the administrative disposed for advance payments was too small — 

 only 10,000 roubles (2) — and therefore the percentage paid in advance was 

 too low and it could not apply its S3'Stem largely. Another experiment was 

 made in the province of Jaroslav, where four agricultural co-operative so- 

 cieties united to organize foreign exporting, and there were yet other ex- 

 periments in the province of Pskov and elsewhere. 



The experiments which succeeded were based on the co-operative prin- 

 ciple. The co-operative societies of Villensk in the province of Novgorod 

 and those of Zukalovsk and Gorelsk in the province of Jaroslav, which 

 achieved a true commercial .success, deserve first mention. 



When the war broke out a grave crisis ensued which brought ruin to 

 hundreds of thousands of peasant flax growers, who had previously exported 

 about eighteen million puds of fibre a year. The situation was aggravat- 

 ed because a defective harvest was added to the cessation of the export 

 trade. 



The co-operative credit societies at once participated largely in the 

 measures which tended to diminish the crisis. The fall of prices which 

 was feared was partly prevented by the very insufficiency of the harvest, 

 and otherwise by guaranteed advances on deposited flax made by some 

 zemstvos, and by some co-operative societies which in this had the help of 



(i) I quintal = 220 lbs. 



(2) I rouble = about 2.9. i V> d. at par. 



