Agricultural Finance & Co-operation. 56 



[Jolt, 1911. 



SOAP COMPANY INCORPORATED. 



Capital P100.000— Will Compete with 

 Imported Soaps— Goods on 

 Market June 15. 



(From the Manila Bulletin,) 



The Philippine Soap Company has been 

 incorporated with a capital of P100.000 

 and will enter the market to compete 

 with imported goods. 



The new company has opened offices 

 at No. 90, Calle Arlegui, will begin oper- 

 ations on June 4, and will be ready 

 to place its goods on the market by 

 June 15. 



The company has engaged the ser- 

 vices of a Spanish expert in the manu- 

 facture of soaps, who has been trained 

 in Spain and Italy, and thoroughly un- 

 derstands the business. Plain goods will 

 be placed on the market to begin with, 

 and later it is the intention of the com- 

 pany to manufacture fancy soaps. 

 Manila and the Philippines offer a good 

 field for the manufacture of soaps, as 

 almost all the soaps used in the islands, 

 with the exceptiou of cheap Chinese 

 soaps, are imported from foreign 

 countries. 



The officers of the new company are : 

 President : T. J. Wolff, well-known in 

 this city as president of the Sanitary 

 Steam Laundry : Secretary : L. P. Good- 

 ale, the Supervising Railway Expert of 

 the Insular Government ; Treasurer : J. 

 Williamson. 



FRANCE. 



Loans op Four Millions made to the 

 Agricultural Co-operative Socie- 

 ties for Production and Sale in 

 Three Years, under Conditions 

 op Favour. 



With resrard to the above we extract 

 the following from the last numbei of 

 the Bulletin of the Bureau of Economic 

 and Social Intelligence, published by the 

 International Institute of Agriculture. 



Everyone knows the magnificent pro- 

 gress that agricultural association has 

 made in France during the last twenty- 

 five years, especially by means of those 

 agricultural syndicates that owe their 

 origin to the Law of 1884, and that, 

 rapidly extending themselves over the 

 whole land, to-day have reached the 

 number of 5,200. 



These organisms, that the French are 

 not wiong in considering as the germ 

 cells of the associative movement, do not 

 confine themselves to the defence of the 



professional interests of their members, 

 but also do business in buying and sell- 

 ing for their members, and initiate every 

 kind of mutual and co-operative socie- 

 ties, from the mutual credit (3,000) and 

 insurance societies (10,700) to the co-oper- 

 ative societies for production and sale 

 (2,600). To these last the interest of the 

 legislator is especially given as he sees in 

 them important instruments for the pre- 

 servation and the advancement of pea- 

 sant property. 



A few of these societies, as the co- 

 operative dairies and cheese factories 

 (fruitieres) are of very ancient origin, 

 especially in the Alps and in the Jura, 

 but almost all the rest are of recent 

 date, and have arisen as the expression 

 of the industrial evolution that agri- 

 culture is undergoing. 



Many of them require, through the 

 very nature of their business, a large 

 plant and an expert technical . staff : 

 hence the necessity of resorting to 

 credit, hence the intervention of the 

 State to place at their disposal a cheap 

 long term credit. 



The law of 29ch December, 1906,on long 

 credit to the agricultural co-operative 

 societies provides tor this need. It 

 authorizes the Regional Banks (inter- 

 mediary organs between the State and 

 the Local Societies) to grant the agricul- 

 tural co-operative societies for produc- 

 tion, transformation and sale long credits 

 for a maximum period of 25 years at an 

 interest not exceeding 2 %. The regional 

 banks do not take the money necessary 

 from their own capital, but it is ad- 

 vanced them without any interest, by 

 tne State, to which it is supplied 

 (always without interest) by the Bank 

 of France. 



The agreement of the 31st October, 

 1896, and the law of 17th November, 1897, 

 in fact, establish that the Bank of 

 France must lend the State, without 

 interest, for purposes of agricultural 

 credit, the amount oi 40 million francs 

 to be repaid on the expiration of the 

 privilege of the Bank, and in addition 

 to this, an annual sum equal to the 

 amount of an eighth of tne rate of the 

 discount multiplied by the amount of 

 the bank bills but never less than two 

 millions. Now, by the law of 29th 

 December, 1906, the State is authorized 

 to advance to the agricultural co-oper- 

 ative societies for production, through 

 the medium of the Regional Banks, a 

 third part of the above annual sum, 

 which in a few years has even amounted 

 to 7 millions. 



The beneficent effect of this law was 

 at once felt, for the agricultural co-oper- 



