The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, March 7, 1921, Page 10

§ R e B taly . enough food to sustain the Birthplace of Co-Operation Socialists and Catholics, Landowners and **Hired Men,” All Devoted to Lo-Operative Principle and Get Government Aid tion of which there is any record oc- curred in Italy, nearly 1,300 years ago, when small landowners, first in Lom-~ bardy and then in other provinces, got together to reclaim land and to irrigate it. The first co-operative dairies in the world also - were organized in Italy. Ever since the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries co-operative associations for dairying have existed in the north of Italy. The oldest form was known as the “turno familiare,” when all the milk of associated farmers was worked in turn in the dairy of one of the members. The next system devised was for the associated dairy- men to rent a central building and employ a head dairyman, to whom all milk was consigned to be transformed into butter and cheese, the farmers then taking their products and selling them indi- vidually. The next logical step was the modern co- operative —dairy, as it exists in every civilized country today, - the co- operative association not merely manufacturing the butter and cheese, but selling it also. Co-operation as it ex- ists in Italy and through- out the world today, however, is not a direct outgrowth of the co-op- eration of the early land- owners .of Lombardy and the dairymen of northern Italy. For hundreds of years agriculture was neglected by the politi- cians and capitalists of Italy. This was the case with every European country, with the single exception of Germany. In Germany, as told in a previous article in the Leader, the government began its efforts to aid the farmers as early as 1770. BAD CONDITIONS BROUGHT ACTION Italy felt the effects of the neglect of the ruling classes / more, perhaps, than any other European country. Italy is small in area and much of its land is so mountainous that it can not be culti- vated. The population is extremely large in pro- portion to the area of cultivated land and by 1880 it began to be a dif- ficult problem for the small farmer and the workingman to get life. = The more enlightened . farmers began to look to Germany, where aericul-’ tural co-operation and state aid were doing won- ders for the farmers. The first modern co-opera- tive societies were organized. These were fof vari- ous purposes, but the most prominent were for- rural credits, for.the purchase of fertilizers and machinery and for the sale of agricultural products. This co-operation was still on a small scale, how- ever.. There was as yet no means of carrying the message of co-operation to the small farmers and the workers of Italy. Millions of them were so desperately poor that they could not afford to buy .a newspaper if they had the time or the ability to read. Millions, kept at hard work since early childhood, could not read or write. Under normal conditions it would have been a tremendous, almost inTpossible task, to carry the message of co-opera- tion to these people and educate them to the neces- sity of working together to preserve themselvesf HE first form of agricultural co-opera-- BOTH .USING THE But conditions were not normal. In 1893 and 1894, while farmers in the United States were be- ing ruined because they could not get enough money for their crops to live, the peasant farmers . and laborers’of Italy could not earn enough money to buy bread. It was a condition of world-wide financial strain, much like what we are facing to- day. ] Conditions were so abnormal that all Italy was in a condition of -unrest narrowly approaching re- volt. The question on the lips of every small farm- er and worker was, “What can we do to better un- bearable conditions?” And while there were no newspapers or magazines to carry the message of co-operation, afid while to millions the printed word would have been of little assistance in any event, there were two organizations that succeeded in reaching nearly every individual in Italy with the word that they must co-operate, N These two organizations were the Socialist party and the Catholic church. Surprising as it may seem that the two or- ganizations, so radical- ly at variance with each other, worked to- ward the same end, it is nevertheless a fact. So- cialist “agitators,” trav- eling throughout Italy, s : roused -the stricken people with their demands for bettered conditions and the chuich immediately set in motion a co-op- erative movement of its own. The manager of }he Bank of Sicily, explaining the situation to an Amer- ican commission which visited Italy in 1913, said: “In 1894 there was considerable social unrest among the small landowners and wage-workers of the country and the Socialist movement helped to further co-operation. The Socialist movement was followed by a ‘confessional’ movement organized by the church. All this helped to form the co-oper- ative spirit, so there is no doubt that the church has helped.” ; How thoroughly the church helped the movement is shown by an “encyclical” issued by Pope Leo XIII., which went to all countries in which the Cath- olic church was represented. In this message the pope directed the church workers everywhere to or- ganize ‘“professional unions,” that is, leagues of PAGE TEN ; ; o j o SAME BOOT-—CO-OPERATION AME BOOT—CO-OPERATION _| farmers, leagues of farm workers, leagues of city workers, etc. The message of the pope stated that the aims of these leagues “must be none other than the improvement of the moral and material condi-— tions of the members of the association.” In other words, the pope urged what opponents of the Nonpartisan league call “class organizations” for the material benefit of members of that class. With the Catholic church and the Socialist party competing against each other it was not long until farmers throughout Italy were organized in co-op- erative societies. Workers also were organized, starting co-operative stores. Both farmers and . workers organized co-operative credit. societies. The credit societies banded together and demand- ed—and got—state aid. In the province of Sicily, for instance, a special tax levy was authorized in 1911 which raised 4,000,000 lire (about $1,000,000), which was turned over to the Bank of Sicily for agricultural credit. The main co-operative institutions in Italy are not unlike those of other European countries. They include: 1. Land mortgage banks, like the lands- chaften of Germany or the federal farm loan banks of the United States. - 2. Raiffeisen societies, which provide short-term personal credit to work- ers in the cities and to farmers in addition to the long-term credit they receive on mortgages. 3. Co-operative cream- eries, cheese factories, granaries and other dis- tributive agencies. 4. Co-operative agri- cultural societies for the purchase of fertilizer, machinery, etec. 5. Co-opetative gener- al merchandise stores. 6. Mutual - insurance societies. SOME NEW FORMS OF CO-OPERATION In some parts of Italy the various co-operative institutions are grouped together in what was known, as a “famiglia agricola” (agricultural : family). Senator Ponti, an Italian lawmaker and land- owner, aided his tenants Tn establishing such an “agricultural family” on his estates at Cornaredo. The farmers are all tenant farmers. Each head of a family has a vote and profits are prorated back to the members on a patronage basis. The different co-operative enterprises included in the agricultural family are: ; A co-operative bakehouse. A mutual cattle insurance society, which compen™” sates for losses due to death or sickness of cattle. A mutual benefit society for assistance in illness, confinements, etc. Laborers belonging to the estate are insured against accidents at the expense of the landowner. . A co-operative dairy society. A co-operative store, which sells household sup- plies to members and buys their wheat and other produce. The, membership differs somewhat in the various societies, the dairy and cattle insurance~societies, for instance, including only those farmers who own cattle, while the co-operative store is open to both - members and nonmembers. All the farmers, how- ever, are members of the “agricultural family,” /z\}flhlch manages all the enterprises and co-ordinates em. ¢ Another co-operative enterprise worth noticing 1s a co-operative farm at Altedo, mnear Bologna. This was started in 1906. The farm in question was - i