RURAL CO-OPERATIVE BAKEHOUSES 2 7 



The thrift fund/ constituted by means of the addition of i centime 

 at least to the cost price of the bread, is used to pay off the debt on the plant 

 and installation. After this has been paid off the fund may be used, with 

 the consent of the general meeting, to reduce the price of bread in years of 

 disaster. The surplus profits must remain in the safe until the amount of the 

 members' contributions has been increased from 40 to 60 frs. After that, 

 the profits are distributed among members in proportion to their con- 

 sumption of bread. 



§ 3. The devei^opment of the rural co-operative bakehouses. 



The work of the rural co-operative bakehouses, whatever their type, 

 is essentially different from that of the urban societies, which, as a rule, 

 put the profits derived from the suppression of commercial intermediaries 

 to another use : in the rural societies, as we have seen, there generally pre- 

 vails the principle of selling their bread as cheaply as possible, or nearly 

 so ; they only aim at the immediate profit of the consumers, by means of an 

 ingenious system of production. The town societies are careful not to 

 promise their bread at the lowest price ; the}^ limit themselves to exciting the 

 hope of future profits, that is to say by savings and their moral influence 

 is quite different. 



Some rural societies have already followed this latter course. For 

 example, the co-operative bakehouse and mill of Uzos (Basses-Pyrenees), 

 founded in April, 1899, for the commune of Uzos and seven other communes 

 in the neighbourhood of Pau, on the initiative of the farmers' syndicate 

 of Basses-P^^renees. This society, according to article 2 of its rules, 

 " has for its sole object to obtain bread for its members at a rate 

 always corresponding with the price of wheat, on the basis of i franc per 

 loaf of 4 kg., when wheat is 17 frs. per 80 kgs. The weight of the bread 

 will be guaranteed and the quality the best possible. " 



This principle of the constant f elation of the price of the bread to the 

 price of the wheat is appreciably different from that of the lowest possible 

 price and is an important advance. Thus, as M. de Rocquigny very well 

 says, it is not too much to expect that the small rural co-operative bakehouses 

 will be able to improve their rudimentary system a little, and, no longer 

 living only for the moment, attempt to perform the honourable office of 

 collectors of the people's savings ; in exercising this educative action the}^ 

 would render more appreciable the benefits they are already conferring on 

 the rural population. 



If there is a serious obstacle in the competition of the village bakers, 

 themselves in the hands of the large millers, there is a way of overcoming 

 it, by organizing bakehouses and mills, which, while they increase the pro- 

 fits of the corporation by getting rid of a double tax on the industry, will 



