20 RUSSIA - CO-OPERATION AND ASSOCIATION 



by deposited flax increases constantly. On i December forty-six co-ope- 

 rative credit societies and two volost funds in the union of Rybinsk did 

 business in advance. On i December, before the operations had been com- 

 pleted, 35,614 puds of a total value of 771,968 roubles had been deposited. 

 Further the quality of the fibre, thanks to the work of the instructors, 

 improved sensibly. For this year the union of Rybinsk has anticipated 

 500,000 puds of fibre. 



The Union's commercial success is great but the other work it has 

 accomplished is even more important. 



Russian co-operation as concerned with flax has been obliged to un- 

 dertake very complicated enterprise in order to solve its own problems. 

 First among such undertakings is the campaign against the monopoly 

 of the trade in flax by dealers with foreign countries. 



Before the war the exporting of flax was exploited by a small number 

 of foreigners who held a sort of monopoly. They fixed prices. Conse- 

 quently Russian dealers, instead of exporting on their own account, in 

 the large majority of cases merely executed the orders of the foreign ex- 

 porters. 



During the war the British government entrusted to a firm the mono- 

 poly of its purchases of flax in Russia. The Russian government formed 

 a special committee to regulate the sale of flax, and this committee trans- 

 mitted to the Central Co-operative Union and the Russian Stock Com- 

 pany for Trading in Flax its exclusive right to sell fibre abroad. The two 

 associations came to an agreement, in virtue of which the Central Union 

 now seeks to solve the great problem of providing allied and neutral coun- 

 tries. 



Altogether in one year of business the Central Co-operative Union 

 of Flax Growers has been able to exercise activity of exceptional impor- 

 tance : i) it has undertaken the defence of the interests of peasants ; 

 2) it has largely eliminated middlemen from the flax market ; 3) it has not- 

 abl5^ weakened the domination of this market by foreign capital ; 4) it 

 has organized the provision of growers with selected seed, manures and 

 machines, establishing agreements for the regulation of the exchange of 

 seed among co-operative associations of flax growers, and agreements 

 between its member co-operative associations and those of the Kustari 

 for the purchase of machines ; 5) it has dift'used knowledge as to agro- 

 nomy and co-operation ; 6) it has defended and protected flax growing 

 in the zone of military operations (provinces of Pskov and Vitelsk); 7) it 

 has furnished the information necessary to the organization of co-ope- 

 rative selling and the treatment of products. 



Hitherto all this activity of the Central Co-operative Union of Flax 

 • Growers has not reached beyond European Russia. It is only now that 

 the first isolated attempts at organizing the co-operative sale of flax are 

 being made in Siberia. 



In Siberia flax growing is not very common, being responsible for 

 only 7.8 per cent, of the world's total yield of flax. This figure represents, 

 it is true, a crop far larger than that of France and Belgium taken toge- 



