AGRICULTURAL SYNDICATES IN FRANCE J^J 



They have come upon the scene in the very nick of time, and, 

 by the help of very able officers and a good administration, have 

 managed to turn favorable circumstances to excellent account. In 

 truth, however, all France, which previously looked upon cooper- 

 ation only as a useful handmaid to production, promising to bring 

 emancipation and independence^ to workingmen, has lately be- 

 come alive to the value of cooperation of other kinds, more 

 particularly credit and supply. While agricultural syndicates have 

 been organizing, agricultural cooperative supply stores, after the 

 pattern of the London army and navy stores, have been spring- 

 ing up and multiplying in towns ; and in the south of France 

 cooperative people's banks have become a recognized source of 

 popular credit. Cooperative associations are now multiplying 

 apace ; and the official account of the growth of cooperation in 

 its various aspects, which is in slow course of preparation in the 

 Rue de Crenelle, promises to prove a most interesting publication. 

 But, unquestionably, the Syndicats have managed to guide and 

 swell this general current beyond anything which could have been 

 anticipated. 



The Syndicat movement, in fact, represents one of the most 

 beneficently effective social or economic movements which France 

 has seen for many a year. And its possibilities, as M. Brelay 

 puts it, altogether defy measuring. This is the more surprising, 

 since the act of 1884, which forms the constitutional charter of 

 Syndicats, deliberately places hindrances in the way of these 

 institutions, and makes it difficult for them to transact business. 

 Hence those rather cumbrous methods of sale and purchase, 

 which there is no space here to describe, and which Count 

 Rocquigny admits to be roundabout and troublesome. Hence, 

 also, the curious classification of members, which seems so wholly 

 opposed to the democratic idea, and which one can scarcely 

 expect to see maintained long in republican France, though up 

 to the present no serious inconveniences appear to have risen. 

 There are membres fondateurs rich men paying heavy subscrip- 

 tions and pledging themselves for a fixed term of perhaps five 

 years and membres effectifs poor cultivators, who pay a small 

 subscription and are free to come and go. It is the latter mainly 



