152 CO-OPERATION IN DANISH AGEICULTUEE 



to be paid into a sinking fund. The chief aim of the co-operative 

 bakeries is to produce pure bread in clean bakeries ; some of 

 them have at the same time been able to return to members a 

 surplus of 10 per cent, of the amount of their purchases of 

 bread. Four co-operative bakeries and twenty-four " joint " 

 bakeries combined in 1916 to form " The Danish Associated 

 Co-operative and Joint Bakeries " for the joint purchase of 

 raw materials and other requisities, for the promotion of 

 common interests, and for an employers' liabiHty risk insurance. 



Co-operative Flour Mills. — Several — in 1914, according to 

 official inquiry, thirty-two — co-operative flour mills are men- 

 tioned, but closer investigation seems to show that only a very 

 few and quite small mills are run on true co-operative lines. 



The Danish Co-operative Cement Worhs were planned in 

 1911, and began production in 1913. It is a co-operative 

 society, the members being users or distributors of cement, 

 such as co-operative distributive societies, co-operative purchase 

 societies, and others, including individual users ; members have 

 to bind themselves for five years to take all the cement they 

 use from the Co-operative Cement Works. On account of 

 legal difficulties the works closed down in 1915, restricting 

 operations to the sale of agricultural hme ; but in February, 

 1917, the manufacture and sale of cement began again, the 

 works having been meanwhile extended so as to produce 

 double the quantity for which they were originally intended. 



Co-operative Buildi^ig Societies. — Although co-operative 

 undertakings were, as has been previously explained, originally 

 started many years ago for the benefit of the labouring classes in 

 Danish towns, they have for many years been carried on almost 

 exclusively by and for the rural population. Lately, however, 

 co-operative distributive stores have sprung up in the metro- 

 poHs, and there are signs that at last the artisan class and other 

 townspeople realise how much benefit they can derive by apply- 

 ing co-operative principles in several of their pursuits. Building 

 societies on co-operative lines were started in Copenhagen as 

 early as 1866, and had a certain amount of success, both there 

 and in other towns, but they gradually lost their character. 

 A new and, as it seems, very serviceable principle has been 

 introduced by The Worhnen's Co-operative Building Society, 



