1920.] Progress of Agricultural Co-operation. 



433 



the movement at the present time. ^J'hose who are most closely 

 acquainted with agricultural co-operation as practised in Den- 

 mark will perhaps be surprised to learn that the most salient 

 need of the co-operative movement in England and Wales is 

 capital. In Denmark, where the dual system of landlord and 

 tenant has given way to that of the owner-occupier, and the 

 farmer consequently is in a position to borrow capital on ample 

 security, co-operative societies make no demand upon their 

 members for share capital and have proved themselves able to 

 flourish on borrowed money pending the accumulation of ade- 

 quate capital out of profits effected by savings in the conduct of 

 their business. It is sometimes forgotten that capital accumu- 

 lated in this w^ay is gained at the expense of the farmer members, 

 who have to pay more for their raw materials or receive less for 

 their produce, as the case may be, in order that the interest on 

 the borrowed capital may be paid and that a sufficitmt margin 

 may be carried by their society to reserve. The I^mish farmers 

 are consequently providing capital by a system of deferred 

 payments. 



In this country, on the other hand, where the iiverage farmer 

 can provide his society with no security on which money can be 

 borrowed, and where the banks are, rightly or wrongly, less 

 accommodating than in Denmark, the conditions of co-operative 

 trading approximate more closely to those under which ordinary 

 commercial businesses are conducted, and the provision of ade- 

 quate capital for working purposes, no less t\\ai\ to cover the 

 provision of buildings nnd equipment, is essential to the develop- 

 ment of a successful co-operative society. A committee of 

 farmers with little previous experience of organised commerce 

 is naturally apt to underestimate the proportion of '.vorking 

 capital required for trading purposes, and it too often happens, 

 also, that when a difficulty is encountered in raising the full 

 amount required to start a society on the proper lines tiie pro- 

 moters are tempted to begin with too little capital f.nd to rely 

 overmuch on borrowed money. 



The Agricultural Wholesale Society.— Apart from the question 

 of finance the main desideratum in the co-operative movement at 

 the present time is to secure better cohesion not only between 

 the societies and their individual farmer members, but also 

 I»etween the societies themselves. The individujil farmer is still 

 too ready to forego the ultimate advantages of co-operation in 

 his anxiety to make an immediate profit, and is ron-^tantly liable 

 to fall an easy prey to temporary undercutting on the y.ai-t of 



