THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT II 



Taken together the co-operative societies of various kinds possess 

 property, paid-up capital and reserves of the average value of 23,593.69 

 liras and individual members are interested to the extent of 124.28 liras 

 each. The average property of a consumers' co-operative society amounts 

 to 16,049.49 liras, that is 76.86 liras a member; that of a production and 

 labour society to 17,651.12 liras or 129.32 liras a member. The economic 

 resources of other forms of co-operation are more important, as regards 

 the average both for a member and for a society. This is easily explain- 

 ed. We have but to remember that by the law of 1908 as to popular 

 dwellings the building societies were exempted from the provisions of the 

 commercial code as to series of shares, which cannot be of more than 100 

 liras. In the case of agricultural societies it should be borne in mind that 

 they include the large organizations for the distribution of fertilizers and 

 seeds and those which, like the cheese factories and the collective cellars, 

 treat products. 



The turnover of more than 5,000 co-operative societies in 1915 was 

 648,248,972.82 liras, distributed as follows : 



co-operative agricultural societies . . " liras 211,514,782.82 



production and labour societies ... " 163,732,001.14 



consumers'societies " 156,841,214.87 



building societies " 116,160,973.99 



These figures would give for every consumers' co-operative society 

 an average turnover of 79,614.82 liras. If the fact be recollected that only 

 1,970 out of 2,408 co-operative societies of this kind supplied information 

 on this point it may be calculated, even if an average turnover of no more 

 than 50,000 liras a year be ascribed to societies which did not respond, that 

 the total annual value of the sales made by consumers' co-operative socie- 

 ties was 180,000,000 liras. 



A comparison with the average turnover of each consumers' co-op- 

 erative society, as shown by the statistics of 1902, reveals an increase of 

 11,170.58 liras, namely, one from 68,444.34 liras to 79,614.82 liras. 



In the case of the production and labour societies this increase is much 

 more marked, being one of 51,495.29 liras which raised the amount from 

 35,192.21 liras in 1902 to 86,588.10 liras in 1915. This is explained 63- the 

 fact that all Italian laws facilitating the participation of societies of this 

 kind in public auctions are posterior to 1902, as appears in an article on 

 this subject which we published in our issue for November 1914. 



§ 4. Profits and losses. 



We will end our short examination of the figures given in the yearbook 

 by showing the profits and losses resulting from these co-operative busi- 

 nesses. The total profits amounted to 11,236,722.18 liras and the total 

 losses to 1,237,985.38 liras : and the net profits were therefore 9,998,736.80 



