Part I : Co-operation and Association 



BELGIUM. 



thp: actr'ity of the Belgian " boerenbond " in 1915. 



SOURCE ; 



Boerenbond belge ou I,igue des Paysans {Belgian Boerenbond or Peasants' League). 

 Short report presented to the general assembly on 12 June 1916 by Cauonlyiiytgaerens, 

 general secretary. 



The powerful organism constituted by the Peasants' Eeagne has not 

 interrupted its labours during the German occupation, as we will prove, 

 rapidly sketching its work in 1915. 



Speaking generally it is true that ever3?thing founded by the Boeren- 

 bond before the war has survived, and moreover new plans have been real- 

 ized. Thus the general secretary's report notes the organization of two new 

 agricultural gilds, one in the province of Antwerp, two in Brabant and one 

 in East Flanders. Means of communication had hardly been re-established, 

 in the last months of 1914, when the league's inspectors began once more to 

 travel abotit the country in order to visit the rural associations and to co- 

 operate, in the words of the report, " in reviving social and economic life in 

 the rural districts ". They were entrusted at the same time with the addition- 

 al duty of collecting information and noting the most lugent needs in 

 order to enable a directing committee to organize committees for relief and 

 nourishment everywhere. F'urther as soon as it was possible the Boerenbond , 

 in agreement with some influential personages in the agricultural world, 

 undertook the defence of the interests of tillers of the soil and participated 

 in the formation of an agrictiltural section of the national connnittee for 

 relief and nourishment which came into being at the end of December 1914. 

 Two of its administrators are members of this section and have taken a 

 large part in all its work. The co-operative society, Agricultural Assistance, 

 which aims at buying food for live stock and all supplies indispensable to 

 agriculture, was founded towards the end of February ; and a delegate 

 of the Boerenbond is on its administrative council. 



" It was not however enough to create an agricultural .section for the 



