50 AGRICULTURAL ORGANISATION 



recognised. Both the Republican and Democratic national 

 platforms of this year very properly recommend and urge the 

 investigation of foreign agricultural credit organisations as a 

 basis of legislation in this country. 



An International Federation. 



Down to 1904 the agricultural co-operative societies of 

 Europe in general were content to discuss questions of 

 international policy through the International Co-operative 

 Alliance, which deals with co-operation in all its various 

 phases in the different countries of the world. At the Buda 

 Pest Congress of the Alliance, however, held in the year 

 mentioned, the representatives of the German and Austrian 

 rural co-operative societies dissented from .the passing of a 

 resolution hostile to the granting by the State of financial 

 aid to co-operative undertakings, and they carried their 

 dissent so far as to withdraw from the Congress altogether. 

 Three years later, on the initiative of the Imperial Federation 

 of German Agricultural Societies, there was formed at 

 Lucerne an International Confederation of Agricultural Co- 

 operative Societies which was to consist exclusively of 

 national federations of co-operative agricultural societies 

 and deal only with the special interests of that type of 

 organisation. 



The new body held congresses at Vienna, in 1907, and 

 Piacenza, in 1908, to discuss matters of policy, and by the 

 end of 1910 it had received the adhesion of national or central 

 federations in the following ten countries : — Germany, France, 

 Austria, Hungary, Italy, Holland, Switzerland, Bulgaria, 

 Servia and Finland. These national federations represent 

 a total of no fewer than 33,000 agricultural co-operative 

 societies. 



At the conferences already held by the Confederation the 

 subjects discussed have mainly related to co-operation for 

 production, sale and credit, and the lines of both national 

 and international policy that should be taken thereon. In 

 regard to production attention was called to the fact that 

 the manufacture of fertilisers by agricultural co-operative 

 societies had assumed large proportions in Italy, and the 



