22 IKFORMATIOX RELATING TO CO-OPERATION AND ASSOCIATION 



principally for the practice of agriculture. To reach this aim the new fe- 

 deration proposes : a) to assist and represent agricultural federations, rural 

 unions and their adherent agricultural associations, protecting their gene- 

 ral interests and promoting their greatest possible progress b^^ demanding 

 such measures of a public order as are most accordant with the importance of 

 their function and the utility of their development ; b) to promote the forma- 

 tion of new agricultural unions, federations and associations ; c) to contribute 

 to increasing as much as possible the co-operative purchase of primary 

 materials, co-operative cultivation, and co-operative marketing, abroad 

 and at home, of products of the soil ; d) to buy and sell and, if required, to 

 produce, in the interests of adherent associations, manures, seeds, ma- 

 chinery^ and all that can be useful to agriculture ; e) to contribute to procur- 

 ing funds for adherent institutions ; /) to act, in general, towards the agri- 

 cultural associations as a centre for information, technical and legal ad- 

 vice and commercial and financial assistance, in the interests of agriculture, 

 agriculturists and the country. 



8. A MEETING OF AGRICUIyTURAI, CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES AT BOLOGNA. — 



BoUettino delVUfficio del Lavoro, No. 13, Rome, 1 July 1917. 



A meeting of agricultural co-operative associations at Bologna on the 

 3rd of last June passed two noteworthy orders of the day in favour of com- 

 pulsory' insurance against the accidents of agricultural labour, and of agri- 

 cultural co-operation and modern social legislation. The latter ran as 

 follows : " The agricultural co-operators, met together at Bologna, ask : 

 1st that the consortia of co-operative labour societies, formed under the law 

 of 1909, be allowed to have ceded to them lands which they will either cede 

 in their turn to their members or themselves farm ; 2nd that farmers or their 

 associations be preferred as lessees, on long leases or otherwise, of lands be- 

 longing to public institutions, religious or other ; 3rd that the programme laid 

 down by the Minister Raineri in his speech at Treviso, as to improvements, 

 the commission for equitable letting contracts, accidents affecting harvests 

 and defective harvests, become law as soon as possible ; 4th that credit 

 be provided for improvements, as wefl as the credit necessary for the even- 

 tual purchase of lands which have been improved or have in some way been 

 reser^^ed' f or their farmers, the acquisition of land by landless agriculturists 

 being thus facilitated ; and 5th that all public works, and reforms and other 

 measures extending the cultivated area, intensifying agriculture and increas- 

 ing production, be realized as soon as possible, the masses of the labouring 

 population being thus profitably attached to the soil ". 



9. THE POSITION OF THE PROVINCIAL FEDERATIONS OF THE CATHOLIC RURAL 

 FUNDS OF BOLOGNA, FLORENCE AND PISTOIA. — Coopcrazione popolare, Nos. 

 12, 13, 14. Parma, June and July 1917. 



The position of the Federazione delle Casse Rurali e Popolari of the pro- 

 vince of Bologna, one of the most important Catholic federations in Italy, 



