28 FRANCE - CO-OPERATION AND ASSOCIATION 



assure their members complete independence in fixing the price of their 

 bread. The exaggerated charges of the millers and the adulteration of 

 the flour will make the reaUsation of this co-operative idea truly advant- 

 ageous. The agricultural syndicates understand this well. In 1894, a 

 cantonal division of the agricultural syndicate of the arrondissement of 

 Poligny bought a mill and founded the Arbois Co-operative Milling 

 Society for threshing, sorting, and grinding corn. The lyoiret Farmers' 

 vSyndicate has a flourmill in a building attached to its head quarters. It 

 is worked by a special association called an ' ' agricultural industrial syn- 

 dicate " and renders important services to the peasant farmers of the 

 outskirts of Orleans. We have already mentioned the Uzos co-operative 

 mills and bakehouse. I,et us add that its founder reckons that a bakehouse 

 can only succeed on condition it has a mill at its disposal, for the following 

 reasons : 



1st. Because it is then able to buy the wheat it requires, get the first 

 choice and supply itself, preferably from its members and adherents, whom 

 it pays in orders for bread (at least to a large extent) ; 



2nd. Because when it grinds itself, it is sure of an excellent flour, 

 whole and nutritious, as it is not when it has recourse to a miller ; 



3rd. I^astly, because a co-operative bakehouse, that has not its own 

 mill, would soon be killed by the millers of the district. 



I^et us, however, add that it seems necessary to have 400 or 500 co-oper- 

 ators for a bakehouse and mill to succeed. Finally, the establishment should 

 make only one kind of flour and only one kind of bread ; it wc rks for the 

 mass of consumers, not for those who want luxuries. Besides, experience 

 shows that the rich consumers do not supply themselves from the co-op- 

 erative bakehouses, for their servants, who only receive small commissions 

 from the bakehouses, always find some way to pass them over. 



M. de Rocquigny would like to go firrther and reserve another role 

 than that of providing for the consumption of their members for the farmers' 

 co-operative associations for the economical production of bread. For the 

 farmers, says he, the interest of the producers is of far more importance than 

 that of the consumers ; they most of all require to sell their produce at a 

 profit and grain is generally their most important produce. Now, when we 

 consider the price paid to the farmer for his grain, and that of the bread 

 sold by the bakers in the towns, we find a considerable difference : in re- 

 ward for their services, the miller and baker receive a considerable part of 

 the value of the raw material, while the farmer sometimes loses on his pro- 

 duce. Why do the farmers leave this proportion to the intermediaries, 

 when co-operation enables them to be millers and bakers themselves ? 

 On the same principle on which the co-operative dairies are organ- 

 ized for the transformation of their members' milk into butter, nothing 

 prevents the farmers associating to found and support, first of all 

 in hamlets and later on in towns, co-operative mills and bakehouses 

 as societies for production. They would induce the consumers to have 

 recourse to them, by leaving them a portion of the profits realised through 



