DANISH CO-OPEEATIVE EGG EXPOET SOCIETY 75 



branches with about 45,000 members. The turnover was in 

 1896 £39,100 and in 1915 £426,000. The Society met from 

 the beginning a fierce competition from private exporters. By 

 avoiding the bad or doubtful eggs the Society received eggs of a 

 higher average value than other exporters, and was therefore 

 able to pay to its members a higher price per lb. than the 

 prices paid by such exporters as felt themselves obhged to 

 receive also the eggs which were kept over and which were 

 anything but new-laid. That fact very soon turned the com- 

 petition in the right direction. Being forced to pay farmers 

 higher prices for their eggs, the merchants found themselves 

 under the necessity of refusing to take eggs which had been 

 held back on the chance of a rise in prices. The reform intro- 

 duced by the D.A.Q^. therefore acted as a leaven that gradually 

 leavened the whole egg trade. In that way this co-operative 

 reform, more perhaps than any other, has had a far-reaching 

 beneficial effect, far beyond the limits of the trade of the Society 

 itself ; it has also educated those farmers who stayed outside 

 the Society to reahse that the loss by letting eggs go bad must 

 eventually fall on the producers, and it has shown privatej 

 dealers and exporters that it is a short-sighted poUcy to takel 

 a momentary advantage at the cost of the reputation of thef 

 goods. 



The complaints from English dealers about the quahty of 

 Danish eggs had driven Danish eggs from the market in London 

 and the South, where competition with good eggs from other 

 countries was felt even more keenly than in the North. "When 

 EngKsh dealers gradually came to understand the system of 

 marking eggs introduced by D.A.CE., and learnt to value the 

 marked eggs as more reliable than other eggs, Danish eggs 

 re-entered the London market. At the annual meeting of the 

 Society in 1898 it was stated that the export of Danish eggs 

 to the south of England during the first three years of the 

 Society's activity had increased sevenfold, and that Danish 

 eggs then reaUsed the same prices as French eggs, which had 

 previously obtained much higher prices and had almost 

 monopolised the London market. 



The revolution which the Society brought about in the 

 Danish egg trade very soon increased the selhng value of the 



