BY
GEORGE K. SHAW
In the Annual Reports for 1914 of the Federal Council of the Churches
of Christ in America, there are some interesting data upon the social
effects of Coöperation in Europe. This report was prepared by the Rev.
Chas. O. Gill, Field Investigator for the Commission on the Church and
Social Service. In making his investigations he visited no less than
twelve countries and gained information as to two others from members of
the Commission who visited them.
In a previous volume entitled, “The Country Church,” Mr. Gill had pointed
out that there is no satisfactory solution of the problem of rural life
apart from the reorganization of rural business. For this reason it was
determined to make a study of European countries that had given serious
attention to the organization of farmers for business purposes. One
object of the study was to learn what part the rural churches should
take in a movement necessary for the preservation of a high standard
of country life and for insuring the possibility of a successful rural
church.
It was found that in most of the area covered the coöperative movement
had passed beyond the experimental stage. Rural coöperation in Europe is
more than half a century old.
Probably the best known example of the success of rural coöperation
is found in Denmark. Much has been written about the wonderful
transformation wrought in that country by union of effort among her
farmers. Coöperation has been one of the most essential factors by which
the people of Denmark have rescued themselves from a condition of extreme
economic distress and attained a prosperity which, considering Denmark’s
limited natural resources, is most remarkable, it is due chiefly to this
that Denmark has more wealth per capita than any other country in Europe.
In Italy, the business of the Federation of Coöperative Agricultural
Associations has grown since 1895 not less than 43 per cent. in any five
year period, while the number of its agricultural societies grew from
1892 to 1910 no less than ten-fold. The business of its coöperative
credit institutions more than doubled in the four-year period from 1908
to 1912.
The movement has also been successful in Hungary. In 1912 there were
8,000 parishes into which the activities of coöperative societies
extended. Up to the outbreak of the war coöperation had also made great
progress in Belgium, while in Holland the coöperative idea has been
making leaps and bounds during the past ten years. Here, as in other
countries, including Austria, Russia, France, and Switzerland, it has
been demonstrated that coöperation is a necessary condition of general
agricultural prosperity.
But Germany affords the best example of agricultural coöperation on a
large scale. In the twenty-year period from 1890 to 1910 the number of
German coöperative agricultural societies grew from 3,000 to 25,000.
From 1892 to 1908 the membership of coöperative societies for collective
purposes grew from 12,000 to 213,000, and the membership of coöperative
dairy societies from 51,500 to more than 1,250,000. Mr. Gill remarks: “It
is due to coöperation more than to any other one thing that Germany has
been able to increase her agricultural productivity fifty per cent. in
fifty years, until now, though smaller in area than our state of Texas,
it produces 95 per cent. of the food of 66,000,000 people.”
Thus it will be seen that agricultural coöperation has worked well both
in small countries and in great. The good results have been incalculably
great especially among the poor farmers. It has emancipated them from
the usurer. In many places the small farmers had never known freedom
from oppressive creditors until the founding of rural coöperative
institutions. By capitalizing the common honesty of the poor, coöperation
has secured for the small farmer, at the lowest rates of interest, money
to be used by him in his necessary operations. Agricultural coöperation
in distribution has enabled the farmer to work for his own support
instead of for the support of a large number of superfluous distributors.
Before the introduction of coöperation the small farmer had been forced
to buy inferior goods at high prices and to sell his products at prices
unreasonably low. But coöperation changed all this. It enabled the small
farmer to place himself on the level with the large farmer in producing
articles of good quality, as well as in the matter of prices received
for them; also to obtain goods of guaranteed quality at moderate prices.
Thus while coöperation has promoted efficiency on the farm, it has also
secured the farmer freedom in the market, and has contributed to the
higher life of the home.
So it is not alone in material betterment that coöperation has blessed
the farmers. It has done a great work in promoting education; in
launching benevolent enterprises for members; in enriching the rural
social life. The coöperative societies have made grants to village
libraries, organized circles for reading and acting, and established
evening clubs. They have also appointed local cattle shows and regular
meetings in which instructive lectures on coöperation, agriculture and
other topics are delivered. They have formed gymnastic societies and
bathing establishments, cattle and poultry breeding societies, local
nursing centres, infant aid associations, anti-consumption leagues, and
engaged in a great variety of other good works.
The recreational and educational buildings are paid for and managed by
the people. Consequently the people get what they want and make use
of what they get. The coöperative buildings become the most complete
social-centre houses in existence. Each building is a kind of club for
men, women and children where they spend their leisure hours and become
acquainted and neighborly.
Nor is this the whole benefit. It has been observed that coöperation has
had a marked effect in the promotion of thrift and morals and temperance.
The coöperator as a rule gets out of debt and begins to save. This
increases his independence and self-respect. The closer association
with his neighbors puts him more upon his good behavior. Many a hard
drinking laborer has, under such influences, quit his evil habits and
rescued his family from wretchedness. All this naturally leads to an
increase of honesty and business integrity. Where there is a small rural
coöperative credit society a person cannot borrow from it unless he has
acquired a reputation for reliability. As a consequence a loan comes as a
certificate of character, while the refusal of a loan may well lead the
would-be borrower to serious reflection. As a result people come to care
more for their reputation in their dealings with one another. Honesty
comes to be an essential quality in business efficiency.
Another all-powerful influence of coöperation is found in the promotion
of democracy. The coöperative movement is essentially democratic in
origin. Success can be attained only by equality of opportunity, mutual
consideration and fair treatment. This naturally promotes political
efficiency also, because the education and the closer association found
in coöperation lead each individual to realize his responsibility and to
endeavor to use his voting power intelligently and wisely.
The effect in the promotion of Peace, Brotherhood, and Religion, is thus
indicated in the report: “It was observed by members of the American
Commission that in nearly all the European countries the great body of
the coöperators, especially among the leaders, think of agricultural
coöperation as a sort of social reform and in some cases almost as
a religion. The admirable moral and social results are recognized
everywhere. Not only has it taught illiterate men to read, made
dissipated men sober, careless men thrifty, and dishonest men square, but
it has made friends of neighbors who had been enemies, while estrangement
among men on account of religious antipathies and the inheritance of
ancient feuds have yielded to its influence and disappeared. It could
scarcely be expected that a movement with such beneficial results could
have been inaugurated and successfully furthered apart from close
association with the Christian churches. In many of the coöperative
enterprises the clergymen have played an important part. The sympathetic
participation in and promotion of the coöperative movement on the part of
the church is a logical and almost necessary result of the existence of a
movement of such a character, since many of the ends for which the church
is striving are effectually accomplished by coöperative institutions
while these institutions, in their purposes and endeavors, necessarily
command the sympathy and allegiance of every sincere and disinterested
churchman.”
It would be well if an exhaustive report of this kind could be made upon
the social effects of rural coöperation in the United States. We know
that the coöperative movement has made some progress in this country,
but in comparatively few localities has it assumed the comprehensiveness
and thoroughness which has characterized it in Denmark and Germany.
Coöperative movements are not unknown to the cities, but in a business
way there is far more need for them in the rural districts, for the
population of those districts is more scattered and the farmer, when
working alone, is more helpless in the face of combinations that may be
formed against him. A great many instances have come to public knowledge
where the farmer has received very inadequate prices for his products
while the consumer in the cities has at the same time been compelled to
pay prices which appear extortionate. Who has not heard of the farmers’
apples rotting on the ground because he could not afford to market them
at the price offered, while the consumer has at the same time complained
that his apples were costing him too much? This is at times true of
a great many products. Farmers usually sell in competition with each
other, at the wholesale price, and buy what they need at the retail
price. Before the days of coöperation the Denmark farmer was as a rule
wretchedly poor; but when he joined with his neighbors and they appointed
a selling agent in London, who guaranteed quality of product, he began
to obtain the best London prices, to secure cheaper transportation rates
and also saved the commissions formerly paid to a number of middle men.
His agents in London and other cities also bought goods for distribution
among the coöperative farmers at wholesale prices.
In our middle western states the coöperative movement started first with
coöperative creameries, many of which proved very successful. In some
rural districts the farmers are organized and have provided warehouse
facilities for storing their surplus products until a satisfactory market
can be obtained, and have learned to sell and buy through their own
agents. In such communities the farmers are thrifty and prosperous, and
their social life and activities makes the country as desirable a place
of residence, so far as that is concerned, as the neighboring cities—and
in some respects much more so. There is no reason why the American
farmers and rural dwellers cannot profit as largely by coöperation as
the people of any part of Europe. The chief economic problem of any
country is proper distribution of products and labor. With a proper
distribution of labor there would not be the congestion that often makes
the unemployment problem so serious in some districts, and there would
not be the inequality of reward for industry that makes some too rich and
the large masses too poor. The rural communities are the backbone of the
nation’s prosperity. All the wealth comes primarily from the land.