28 CO-OPEBATION IN DANISH AGRICULTUKE 



the business through a committee elected at the general meeting 

 and auditors elected outside the committee. 



According to Danish Law a dealer or merchant must have 

 a licence to trade, and all trading firms must be registered. It 

 was the intention when the Law on Trading of 29th December, 

 1857, was amended in 1^73, to require all co-operative stores 

 to have a licence, but V. Faber urged with effect that this should 

 depend on whether they supplied the general public or only 

 their own members, and this view prevailed. A co-operative 

 store is not considered *' a trader " when it (1) distributes goods 

 only to members ; (2) buys for the joint account of members, 

 these being severally and jointly liable for the debt ; and (3) 

 divides the surplus among members. A trader's licence is not 

 very costly. It is therefore peculiar that only 577 or about 

 one-third of the co-operative stores had such licences which 

 would enable them to trade with others than members. i In 

 most other countries almost all co-operative stores are free to 

 sell to anybody ; it is so in England and in Germany. This 

 peculiar Danish feature is caused by the above-mentioned 

 statute, which is really a survival from somewhat mediaeval 

 times. In order to protect the dealers and artisans in market 

 towns, no dealer may trade within 7 miles of the market place, 

 and no '' huckster," second-hand dealer, nor artisans of certain 

 trades may trade within about 5 miles of the market place. 

 A co-operative store dealing with others than members, being 

 a trader, cannot exist in these "protective belts" around 

 market towns, and therefore all co-operative stores within 

 these " belts," which comprise a very large part of the country, 

 are obHged to be " purely co-operative," and deal only with 

 members. Several market towns have during later years 

 abohshed the " protective belt," and the whole statute is likely 

 to be soon repealed. If a co-operative store sells spirit, beer 

 (except temperance beer), wine or cider, it must hold a separate 

 licence (only off-licences are allowed them), and 963 co-operative 

 stores of the 1562 in existence in 1914 held such licences. 



The Co-operative Wholesale Society of Denmark, formed in 

 1896, elected as its first chairman Severin Jorgensen, who 

 acted as such until 1913, when he retired on account of age, and 



1 " Statistiske Efterrctninger," 1915, No. 7. 



