CHAPTER XVI 

 POLAND 



IT was not until 1900 that the first agricul- 

 tural association on co-operative lines was 

 started in Poland, yet already the practical 

 utility of this form of combination has been 

 abundantly proved in a country where agricul- 

 tural conditions had suffered from a long series 

 of adverse circumstances. 



There was a time in the history of Poland 

 when the peasants, instead of paying rent, 

 worked for the landowner, to whom they were 

 so much bound that they could not leave the 

 land without his permission. Even when this 

 requirement was abolished, they still did work 

 in lieu of paying rent, and though they were 

 granted the right to own land, comparatively 

 few of them had acquired possession of their 

 holdings down to 1800. Four years later the 

 peasants had a grant made to them of the land 

 they lived on, and they were now freed from 

 any obligation to work (except as wage-earners) 



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