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24 THE ATHENAEUM ! x X Department of the Institution | THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN DENMARK By Edward Franklin Frazier Professor of Social Science, Morehouse College T HE remarkable progress of co-operation in Denmark during the last century is attributable, according to some authorities, to certain historical and social conditions peculiar to the country. For many centuries the social and economic life of the villages was carried on in a spirit of co-operation. In fact the village was an independent unit of social activity. Not only was the land held in common but mutual aid was rendered in the harvesting of crops, and farm labor, and even a bull was maintained as the common property of the village. In each village there was some form of reparation for everyone in case of fire or sickness. Protection against floods, robbers, and wild animals was secured through collective action. But during the eighteenth century much of this form of co-operation was destroyed by the change in land tenure. Although for many centuries communal ownership was in accord with the needs of agriculture, it gradually became an obstruction to agri cultural progress. Several laws at the close of the eighteenth century, aiming at re forms in agriculture, effected a distribution of the land for individual enterprise. But the education which the farmers had received in co-operation under the communal system was not lost by its abolition. Moreover the system of collective ownership had not died out entirely before the first co-operative undertakings under modem conditions were inaugurated. Such then was the background of the people who were destined to lead the world in co-operation. “Before discussing the origin of the movement in Denmark under modern con ditions, it is worthwhile to mention two movements in Prussia about the middle of the nineteenth century that have affected the movement. These were the loan socie ties established by Schulze-Delitzsch and Raiffeisen. The former, beginning with the collective buying of materials by shoemakers, later established credit associations to afford its members loans at low rates by the small contributions of their members. In the case of the credit assocations formed by Raiffeisen the purpose was to offer cheap credit to small farmers. These two movements attracted the attention of foreigners and offered an experience in collective enterprise that was imitated. These men, as well as those who initiated the • Danish movement, were students of the Rochdale movement in England. Credit Unions “The first attempts at co-operation in Denmark in the modern sense took the form of credit unions. We are considering those undertakings which represent tile spontaneous action of the farmers and not those sporadic efforts of the State to relieve the suffering incident to the breaking up of the commons. All credit unions, however, were established by legislative enactments and must conform to legal re quirements as to the liability of their membeis and the conditions upon which loans