84 CO-OPEEATION IN DANISH AGEICULTUEE 



the board of representatives, elected by the general meeting, 

 shall procure from a bank ; for this loan members are jointly 

 liable in proportion to the value of butter delivered by them 

 during the previous year, the total liability of members is, 

 however, not to exceed a sum of £11,000. 



The last of the Butter Export Associations, The Vejle 

 District Butter Export Association, began in Yejle in December 

 1914, with 7 dairies and a turnover of about £100,000. Pay- 

 ment is made according to quality as determined by weekly 

 judgings. 



These seven Export Associations comprised, in August, 

 1916, a total of 368 members. During the war many dairies 

 have joined them, including many of the dairies which before 

 the war had been exporting cream to Germany. Before the 

 war there was a duty on butter imported into Germany but 

 not on cream, and German dealers found it to their advantage 

 to buy cream in Denmark and churn it on the other side of the 

 boundary. As soon as the war broke out, the duty on butter 

 in Germany was repealed, with the result that the export of 

 cream from Denmark to Germany ceased at once, and the 

 Danish dairies in question reverted to the original export of 

 butter. 



The relative importance of these Export Associations is seen 

 from the following table : — 



In the year 1914, the last for which the figures are available, 

 the Co-operative Butter Export Associations handled one-fifth 

 of Denmark's export of butter, and during the war this pro- 

 portion has probably been considerably increased. 



