148 CO-OPEKATION IN DANISH AGKICULTURE 



by the study of these insurance societies by which something 

 really important has been achieved by small means." i 



There are 15 mutual insurance societies insuring their 

 members against loss by hail,2 the oldest one dating from 1864. 

 The number of members is 84,400, the amount insured 

 £11,000,000, the premium varies with the amount of damage 

 to be covered. The total income was about £7000 in 1910, 

 and about £40,000 in 1915, owing to the fact that the crops 

 suffered considerable damage in 1914 and 1915. During the 

 last two decades some seven mutual insurance societies have 

 been formed, insuring their 87,000 members against damage 

 to their buildings by storm, the total value insured being 

 £32,000,000. 



Among other insurance societies, one calls for special men- 

 tion, viz. " The Employers' Liabihty Risk Insurance Society for 

 Dairies and Agriculture." A Law of 7th January, 1898, on 

 Employers' Liability in case of accidents to workmen engaged 

 in factories using machinery, made owners of all co-operative 

 and of most other dairies hable, and to meet the risk a mutual 

 society was formed in November of the same year by 712 

 co-operative dairy societies. By the following year almost all 

 the co-operative dairy societies and many private collective 

 and estate dairies had joined. A Law of 27th May, 1908, im- 

 posed a similar habiHty on owners of agricultural holdings of 

 a taxable value of not less than £450, while for smaller holdings, 

 of which the owner is in a scarcely better economical position 

 than his labourer, it gave facilities for both owner and labourer 

 to insure themselves voluntarily against accidents occurring in 

 the course of their agricultural work, the State paying half 

 of the insurance premium. The above-named society obtained 

 the sanction of the Minister of the Interior to widen the scope 

 of its activity in effecting insurances under this Law ; it also 

 formed a branch for private insurances against accidents. In 

 1916 the society had about 158,000 members, of which about 

 1300 were dairy societies or owners of private dairies, 51,500 

 compulsorily insured and 14,000 voluntarily insured agricultural 

 holdings, and about 90,000 private persons. The general 



1 Tidsskrift for Landokonomi, 1903, p. 311. 

 * See note on previous page. 



