20 AUSTRIA - CO-OPERATION AND ASSOCIATION 



this subject. Thus the Council was able to show that Raiffeisen's ideas, 

 which had become deeply rooted in the Rhine lands and in South Germany, 

 had already crossed the frontier, and, overcoming preconceived antipathies, 

 were rapidly advancing even in France. 



The Trent Division was thus able to show that the Raiffeisen prin- 

 ciples were not only apphcable to populations of German race, the rather 

 as the co-operative idea had already found numerous disciples even in 

 Italy, where the sj-stem was introduced in 1889 into Ivombardy, Piedmont, 

 Tuscany, the Neapolitan Provinces and above all, into Venetia, through 

 the action of the Hon. Signor Wollemborg, who was the apostle of the co- 

 operative idea in Italy and who just that year had founded an ItaHan P'eder- 

 ationof Rural Loan Banks, of which there were 50, with already' 3,000 members, 

 that had distributed no less than 1,000,000 francs in small loans. Nor was 

 it otherwise in the Austrian Provinces, where the movement, in favour of 

 agricultural co-operation on the Raiffeisen system was extending, in spite of 

 the geographical, ethnographical, political and economic differences between 

 the various regions, above all in the Provinces of Salzburg and Upper 

 and Lower Austria, where the system was early applied, as has been shown 

 in various articles published in this Bulletin. 



As soon as the ist. Division of the Provincial Council of Agriculture 

 adopted for the German Tyrol the model rules compiled by the Provincial 

 Executive Council of Lower Austria, the Trent Division published an Italian 

 translation of them in the Agricultural Almanac for 1889 (i), together with 

 an exhaustive article on " Personal Agricultural Credit » (2) and recom- 

 mended them to the Social Banks to be eventually started in the District. 

 Then, the Trent division published the rules for a " Co-operative Society 

 for the Purchase of Farm Requisites " (3), compiled by the Trent Co-oper- 

 ative Bank to which the Trent Savings Bank made special donations : and 

 it was just these societies that aimed at giving an idea of the practical 

 application of the fundamental principles of the Raifieisen system, that is 

 to say, unhmited liabiUty and co-operation, that by reason of their simple 

 organization first made progress in the district of Trent. 



Nor did the work of the Trent division in behalf of co-operation in 

 the district stop here. 



The Province contributed efficaciously to the progress of the Co-oper- 

 ative Societies and Rural Banks, granting the Trent Division financial 

 assistance enabling it to assign to each co-operative society or rural bank an 

 amount of not more than 200 florins, besides the printed matter and registers 

 required. The State had already made provision for the wine societies by 

 a credit granted in order to reduce the damage caused by the clause favouring 

 ItaHan wines. 



But, as soon as the first difficulties had been overcome, the need was 

 felt of federating the various banks together for common purposes; in fact 



(i) pages 286-315 



(2) pages 281-286 



(3) PP- 315-3^0 



