26 



Belgian Co-operative Societies. 



were 122 co-operative live stock insurance associations 

 affiliated to the East Flanders Insurance Society. These 

 local societies had 13,670 contributing members, and the 

 number of head of cattle insured was 42,340. The sum 

 paid out by the central society as compensation in 1897 

 amounted in all to over ^2,175. The total number of 

 societies for the mutual insurance of live stock existing at the 

 end of 1897 was 436, with 43,086 members, and 119,253 head 

 of cattle were then insured. In addition to the co-operative 

 associations there is, in West Flanders, a system of general 

 and obligatory insurance of live stock, which has been in 

 operation since 1837, providing for compensation in all cases 

 where horses, cattle, asses, and sheep are slaughtered by 

 order of the authorities, and the meat of such animals declared 

 unfit for food. A similar institution was founded in 1892 in 

 the province of Antwerp ; but in January, 1896, the principle 

 of obligatory insurance was abandoned in this case. There 

 were in 1898 four local associations for the mutual insurance 

 of horses, in which 349 horses' were insured by 234 subscribing 

 members. 



The agricultural credit institutions existing in Belgium are 

 of two kinds, viz., agricultural banks (comptoirs agricoles\ 

 constituted under the law of April 18th, 1884, and co-opera- 

 tive credit associations on the Raiffeisen and Schulze Delitsch 

 system. The former have made little progress in the country, 

 and only seven institutions of this character have been estab- 

 lished since 1884. Their business consists for the most part 

 in advancing loans of comparatively large amount to land- 

 owners, and occupiers of large farms. 



In 1897 there were in operation in Belgium 158 Raiffeisen 

 credit banks, with 5,689 members. In order to promote the 

 establishment of these banks the Government, by a Law ot 

 the 2 1 st June, 1894, authorised the General Savings and 

 Annuity Bank to make advances to Raiffeisen associations 

 upon the security of a central society to which the local 

 associations must be affiliated. The guarantee fund of a 

 central society is usually divided into two portions, one of 

 which consists of annual payments by each local affiliated 

 association, amounting to about one-fourth per cent, on the 



