CO-OPERATIVE DISTRIBUTIVE SOCIETIES 



As the various kinds of co-operative undertakings in Denmark 

 will be mentioned in chronological order the|Credit Associations 

 should head the list, the first two of these being founded as 

 early as 1851 J But for various practical reasons it has been 

 decided to reserve them for a later chapter. They differ in 

 several respects from the other co-operative undertakings. 

 While the other co-operative societies have been formed and 

 managed, and in many instances have been conceived, by 

 practical farmers belonging mostly to the middle or lower 

 strata of society, it was pohticians, scient ific economists and 

 large estate owners who introduced the Credit Associations . 



The Co-operative Distributive Societies were, after several 

 feeble, independent attempts as far back as 1861, introduced into 

 Denmark as direct imitations of the English co-operative stores 

 of the Kochdale type, and they were introduced by a clergyman,* 

 the Eev. Hans Christian Sonne (1817-1880), for the benefit 

 of the poor working-class people in his urban parish, Thisted. 

 Pastor Sonne saw the necessity of improving the material 

 well-being of his poor parishioners before he could expect to 

 gain their attention for spiritual and intellectual teaching. 

 He told the working men about the English co-operative 

 stores, and in 1866 induced them to form the first society for 

 the purchase of the necessaries of life, called The Society of 

 Working Men in Thisted Town, which adopted the Kochdale 

 principles : sale at current prices and for cash, dividing the 

 net surplus according to members' purchases. 



For the first few years the movement spread very slowly, 

 and in a way typical of social development in Denmark, mostly 

 in rural districts, helped in a few instances by men of the upper 

 classes. x\mong Sonne's helpers should be mentioned Dr. 

 Ulrik and V. S. V. Faber, who in 1868 formed a society in 



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