village form their supply store, their cooperative dairy, their " control " society, bull club, horse-breeding or egg collecting society, all being cooperative and all being independent of one another, although the members and even the committee members are often the same individuals. The cooperative societies of the same kind in the villages in a district have in many cases formed an Association, and similar Associations would be formed in other districts, for instance, Associations of Cooperative Dairy Societies or Associations of Bull Clubs. These district associations, in some instances, again combine within larger districts or within the three provinces, Sealand, PREFACE xi Funen, and Jutland, to form Provincial Unions, but each keeps strictly to its own sphere, the Provincial Union of Horse Breeding Societies, for instance, being independent of the Provincial Union of Cooperative Dairy Societies, although it may very well happen that some prominent peasant may be a member of the committee of more than one Association or Union in his district or province. The Provincial Unions of the dairy societies have combined to form a Central Organisation for the whole country. In some instances the local cooperative societies, such as the Cooperative Bacon Factories, each of which serves a fairly large district, have formed a Union for the whole country, as also have most of the Cooperative Distributive Societies. These Associations or Unions have no power to interfere in the working or management of the independent local societies ; their function is generally restricted to giving advice, helping to keep the societies on uniform lines, and representing them in their relationship to others ; or they take up work which the local societies could not do, such as the collection of statistics. The more important of these Central or Provincial Unions together with some large cooperative societies extending their operations to the whole country, have combined to form a central representative body, the Central Cooperative Committee (" Andelsudvalget "), which thus forms as it were the keystone to the complete arch. < It is only quite recently that the question of cooperative short credit, as distinct from the Credit Associations, has been taken up by Danish peasants through the Cooperative Village Banks. At the same time, the more complete organisation, through the Central Cooperative Committee, has enabled the cooperative societies to form a Cooperative Bank. It is the intention in future to call large annual meetings of delegates from all the cooperative associations affiliated to or represented on the Central Cooperative Committee for the discussion of all cooperative questions of a general nature, and for the purpose of voicing the wishes of the cooperative societies, for instance, in their relation to the State. An important development which seems to indicate a possible solution of the difficult problem of how to counteract trusts and similar combines has been successfully practised xii PEEFACE. / by Danish co-operators ...