infor:matiox relating to co-operation and association 25 



ative societies of Silesia belong to no federation. This Polish federation 

 was formed in 1871, and was registered and granted the right of revision 

 on 14 July 1892. 



At the end of 1914 it had 301 members as follows : 



208 co-operative societies of credit 



61 

 22 



4 

 3 

 3 



for purchase and sale 



subdivision 



consumption 



the construction of dwellings 

 of trades. 



i) of these 208 credit societies 199 had unlimited and only nine li- 

 mited liability. The latter were formed after the law of i88g, allowing the 

 creation of co-operative societies of such type, was in force. 



The co-operative credit societies had in all 129,448 members or an 

 average of 622 for each society. The minimum membership of a society 

 was fifty-one, the maximum 6,554. I'he trades of members were as 

 follows (i) ; 



85,848 (68.63 P^r cent.) were agriculturists ; 

 24,858 (19.87 per cent.) " artisans ; 



14,391 (11.50 per cent.) " traders and members of va- 

 rious trades. 



In the agriculturists' group small landowners predominated being re- 

 presented by 76,776 members. Of that of the artisans more than half — 

 14,147 — were also landowners. 



It is interesting to note that almost all the societies comprised members 

 of different trades, those which were composed of members of only one trade 

 being ver}' rare. This is due to the fact that most of them were situated 

 in towns and included a town and the surrounding villages in their sphere 

 of action. 



Their working capital amounted to 320,275,969 marks, being made up 

 as follows : 



Share capital 26,280,839 marks 



reserve fund 15.155-934 



individual deposits 271,013,287 



current accounts in banks 7,825,909 



320,275,969 marks 



(i) The data for two co-operative societies are laddng. 



