26 AGRICULTURAL ORGANISATION 



France. 



Agricultural unions in France are mainly divided into 

 two groups — associations and syndicates. 



The agricultural associations comprise Societies of Agri- 

 culture, Agricultural Assemblies (cornices), and Chambers 

 of Agriculture. They devote their energies principally to 

 science and research, improvement of livestock, agricul- 

 tural legislation, etc. Of Societies of Agriculture there 

 are 685, and of agricultural cornices 917. 



" Syndicate " is a term which signifies, in France, not a 

 group of financiers, as in England, but, in effect, the 

 equivalent of our expression " trade union " ; and it was 

 under a law of March 21st, 1884, giving the representatives 

 of every industry in France almost complete liberty of 

 association, that the agriculturists — who, at the last 

 moment, were expressly included — got a charter which 

 enabled them to organise the groups of societies, or " syndi- 

 cates," comprised in agricultural organisation as developed 

 in their country to-day. 



While the industrial syndicates regarded the law of 1884 

 as the concession to them of the right to strike, the agri- 

 cultural syndicates at first established themselves almost 

 solely as distributive co-operative societies to which the 

 associated farmers looked as a means of obtaining at 

 reduced cost the requisites for their farm work. This 

 they did more especially in the case of fertilisers, with the 

 further advantage, in respect thereto, that the syndicate 

 was better able to arrange for analyses and to guarantee 

 quality ; but combination for purchase of fertilisers led to 

 similar arrangements being made also in respect to imple- 

 ments, machinery, seeds and breeding-stock. How the 

 number of these syndicates has increased is shown by the 

 following figures : — 



Year. Syndicates. Members. 



1890 . . . . . . 648 234,234 



1900 .. .. .. 2,069 5 I2 <794 



1910 5.146 777,066 



