24 INFORMATION KEI<ATING TO CO-OPERATION AND ASSOCIATION 



the war. Thus it ensures a greater economy in expenditure and the better 

 utilization of the funds destined by the mem))ers for this building. The 

 society provides for all possible technical, hygienic and aesthetic improve- 

 ments, and by grouping the necessary funds gives a better guarantee to con- 

 tractors. A perceptible economy can thus be realized in the purchase of 

 materials and cost of labour. It may be added that without co-operative 

 organization the transport of building material would have been impossible. 

 The work is executed on behalf of individual members who must contribute 

 the necessary funds in cash or realizable securities, or by assignments to the 

 societies of indemnities due for war damages. A common fund is consti- 

 tuted by charging one per cent, of the total costs of building to meet tht- 

 societ3^'s expenses for all its members. Interesting model, by-laws, which 

 allow minors and the incompetent to profit by these societies, have been 

 drawn up. 



It is thought that these co-operative societies for reconstruction will 

 be multiplied and have a fairly important development, thanks to the im- 

 mediate advances of indemnities for war losses, to meet urgent needs. 



GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND 



AN IRISH CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY FOR GROWING WHEAT.— From Better Business 

 Vol. II, Nf. 3. Dublin. May 1917. 



Co-operative farming in an original form .has been practised in 

 Foynes, a small village in County lyimerick and on the Shannon. 



In the autunm of 1915, when the price of food was beginning to Vje 

 felt severel}' by the workmen of the village, Lord Monteagle suggested that 

 they might form a society to grow wheat for the supply of their own wants. 

 He undertook to rent to the society a field of heavy corcass land, seven 

 statute acres in extent, at the rate of £2 an acre. In the first year the 

 constitution of the society provided that it .should have only twenty-eight 

 members to be selected by Lord IMonteagle ; for no more land was avail- 

 able and it was desired that selected members should secure the success of 

 the experiment and smooth the path to future development. After its 

 first year the society was registered as a co-operative society having open 

 membership. 



The principal rules of the society, as it was first constituted, were 

 that the price of each share should be 30s. — 5.9. being pa3^able on allot- 

 ment and 6d. a week for fifty weeks ; that shareholders more than four 

 weeks in arrears in the payment of weekly instalments should be liable 

 to suffer forfeiture of their shares ; that any forfeited shares should be al- 

 located to new and suitable applicants who should pa}^ their full value on 

 the same terms as the original members ; that the society .should be ad- 

 ministered by a committee of seven members elected by the shareholders, 



