INFORMATION RELATING TO CO-OPERATION AND ASSOCIATION 



at the production of machines themselves may hold much promise for the 

 future ; for the import from foreign countries of machines, on which annual- 

 h' a sum of 63,800,000 roubles was expended, has been almost stopped. 

 The co-operative federations in Jekaterinburg and Melitol should be 

 mentioned in this connection as pioneers. They have already worked 

 out plans for establishing machine factories which have the necessary 

 strong backing. A co-operative factory which turns out 1,000 corn-winnow- 

 ing machines a year is now at work in Melitopol. In view of the present 

 large demand for machines it may be taken as certain that this factory 

 will soon be followed bv others. 



2. MUTUAL CREDIT SOCIETIES IN RUSSIA ON i JULY 1915. Cbo3:i> Ba-iaHCOBi, 

 OrbmecTB'B BaaiiMHaro Kpe;3;HTa ;],'feHCTByK)in;HX'i> bb Poccii-i na i Iiojih 1915 

 TOjia. — MiiHiicxepcTBO OHHancoBi,. (Hn;i,aHie Oco6eHHoii KanuejinpiH no 

 Kpe;;HTHOH HacTii) (Collection of Summarized Financial Statements of the Mutual 

 Credit Societies operating in Russia, showing their Condition on 1 Jtily 1915) Special Oflfice 

 for Credit Business, Petrograd, P. P. Sojkin, 1916 (folio) 39 pp. 



We take the followdng most prominent data from the half yearl}' 

 report, based on figures, which has been issued by the special office 

 for providing credit of the Ministr}' of Finance, as to the position and acti- 

 vity of existing credit societies on i July 1915. 



The credit societies which were modelled on the Brussels " Union de 

 credit " in Petrograd in 1864, and of which the first fifty years of life were 

 honoured at the appropriate time in our Review (i), ntmibered 1,179 ^^ ^^^ 

 the Russian State on i July 1915. Thirty-one of them were in Petrograd, 

 eight in Moscow, about 170 in the capital towns of governments and provinces, 

 and 970 in those of districts and in small countr}^ places. Their existence 

 in the last named — the circumstance that these societies are foiind 

 even in small market towns — has particular interest for us ; for thus they 

 enter into business relations wdth the rural population, who are able to 

 seek credit from them. The existing credit societies have by the law of 

 II May 1898 been empowered to accept promissory notes secured by land 

 and in this way to make short-terra credit accessible to farmers. Excep- 

 tionally and with the permission of the Minister of Finance they ma}^ give 

 credit not only to their own members, most of whom are tradespeople and 

 small manufacturers, but also to the rural connnunities and the peasants' 

 co-operative societies. 



Of the 1,179 societies 1,039 published their reports punctually. The 

 other 140, of which some have their spheres in territory now held by the 

 enemy and some have been abandoned, have partialh' discharged their 

 functions but they could not intimate what results they had obtained on i 

 July 1 91 5. 



(i) See International Review of Agriculture. December 191 4. 



