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‘A model co-operative country’: Irish–Finnish contacts at the turn of the twentieth century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2017

Mary Hilson
Mary Hilson*
Affiliation:
Aarhus University, Denmark
*
*Department of History and Classical Studies, School of Culture and Society, Aarhus University, Denmark, mary.hilson@cas.au.dk
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Abstract

Agricultural co-operative societies were widely discussed across late nineteenth-century Europe as a potential solution to the problems of agricultural depression, land reform and rural poverty. In Finland, the agronomist Hannes Gebhard drew inspiration from examples across Europe in founding the Pellervo Society, to promote rural cooperation, in 1899. He noted that Ireland’s ‘tragic history’, its struggle for national self-determination and the introduction of co-operative dairies to tackle rural poverty, seemed to offer a useful example for Finnish reformers. This article explores the exchanges between Irish and Finnish co-operators around the turn of the century, and examines the ways in which the parallels between the two countries were constructed and presented by those involved in these exchanges. I will also consider the reasons for the divergence in the development of cooperation, so that even before the First World War it was Finland, not Ireland, that had begun to be regarded as ‘a model co-operative country’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 41 , Issue 160: Ireland and Finland, 1860–1930: Comparative and Transnational Histories , November 2017 , pp. 221 - 237
Copyright
© Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 

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References

1 Hilson, Mary, Markkola, Pirjo and Östman, Ann-Catrin, ‘Introduction: co-operatives and the social question’, in eaedem (eds), Co-operatives and the social question: the co-operative movement in northern and eastern Europe (1880–1950) (Cardiff, 2012), pp 1–24 Google Scholar; see also the other chapters in the same volume.

2 Co-operative creameries or dairies (Finnish: osuusmeijeri; Swedish: andelsmejeri) collected milk from their farmer members for processing into products such as butter. In Ireland they were always known as creameries. To avoid confusion, the latter term is used throughout the article. (Thanks to an anonymous referee for alerting me to this point.)

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7 For more on the similarities and contrasts in the Irish and Finnish experiences, see the introduction to this collection by Mc Mahon and Newby.

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11 On land conflicts in early twentieth-century Finland, see Suodenjoki, Sami, ‘Land agitation and the rise of agrarian socialism in south-western Finland, 1899–1907’ in Mary Hilson, Silke Neunsinger and Iben Vyff (eds), Labour, unions and politics under the north star: the Nordic countries, 1700–2000 (New York, 2017)Google Scholar. See also Sami Suodenjoki’s contribution to this collection.

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20 Doyle, ‘“Better farming”’, p. 67. Doyle notes that by 1907 the I.A.O.S. had eight organisers, including one woman.

21 Doyle, ‘“Better farming”’, pp 57–8. The D.A.T.I. was the first autonomous Irish Government department to be established. On its relations with the I.A.O.S., see: Daly, Mary E., The first department: a history of the Department of Agriculture (Dublin, 2002) pp 39–46 Google Scholar.

22 Doyle, ‘“Better farming”’, p. 111, table 2.1. Note that Jenkins gives a much lower figure for 1900 of 171 co-operative societies with 26,577 members: Jenkins, William, ‘Capitalism and co-operators: agricultural transformation, contested space and identity politics in South Tipperary, Ireland, 1890–1914’ in Journal of Historical Geography, xxx, no. 1 (2004), p. 94 Google Scholar. Doyle’s figures for 1908 are consistent with those reported by R. A. Anderson to the International Co-operative Alliance in 1910 (see table 1), except that he gives the number of societies as 881 instead of 882.

23 Mathews, P. J., Revival: the Abbey Theatre, Sinn Féin, the Gaelic League and the co-operative movement (Cork, 2003), pp 6–10 Google Scholar.

24 Doyle, ‘“Better farming”’, pp 54–5; Kennelly, ‘The “dawn of the practical”’, pp 67–8.

25 Plunkett, Horace, Ireland in the new century, (3rd ed., London, 1905), pp 11–12 Google Scholar. See also Kennelly, ‘The “dawn of the practical”’, pp 62–81.

26 Doyle, ‘“Better farming”’, p. 53; Jenkins, ‘Capitalism and co-operators’, p. 91; Kennelly, ‘The “dawn of the practical”’, p. 64; King, ‘The early development of agricultural co-operation’, p. 68. Jenkins gives an even steeper decline for market share of Irish butter, to a low of only 0.3 per cent in 1884 on the London market. See also Lampe, Markus and Sharp, Paul, ‘Greasing the wheels of rural transformation? Margarine and the competition for the British butter market’ in Economic History Review, lxvii, no. 3 (2014), pp 769–792 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 O’Rourke, Kevin H., ‘Property rights, politics and innovation: creamery diffusion in pre-1914 Ireland’ in Explorations in Economic History, xi, no. 3 (2007), pp 359–417 Google Scholar. See also Gráda, Cormac Ó, Ireland: a new economic history, 1780–1939 (Oxford, 1994)Google Scholar on the performance of Irish agriculture in this period more generally.

28 Jenkins, ‘Capitalism and co-operators’, pp 88–91.

29 Östman, Ann-Catrin, ‘Civilising and mobilising the peasantry: co-operative organisation and understandings of progress and gender in Finland, c.1899–1918’, in Hilson, Markkola & Östman (eds), Co-operatives and the social question, pp 121–136 Google Scholar.

30 Anna-Liisa Sysiharju, ‘Gebhard, Hannes (1864–1933)’ in Suomen Kansallisbiografia (http://www.kansallisbiografia.fi/kansallisbiografia/henkilo/4278) (25 May 2017); Mäkinen, Riitta and Sysiharju, Anna-Liisa, Eteenpäin ja ylöspäin: Hedvig Gebhardin osuus ja toiminta (Helsinki, 2006), pp 73–75 Google Scholar. Gebhard’s book was published as Gebhard, Hannes, Maanviljelijäin yhteistoiminnasta ulkomailla (Helsinki, 1899)Google Scholar. See also Hilson, ‘Transnational networks’, p. 89.

31 Alanen, Aulis J., Hannes Gebhard (Helsinki, 1964), p. 210 Google Scholar. Gebhard’s biographical entry in the Helsinki University catalogue notes that he undertook study trips to Germany and Austria in 1893–4 and to Scandinavia, Germany, Paris and London in 1898–9. See: Tor Carpelan och L. O. Th. Tudeer, Helsingfors universitet. Lärare och tjänstemän från år 1828 (Helsingfors, 1925), pp 246–50. I am grateful to Stefan Nygård for bringing this source to my attention.

32 R. A. Anderson to Hannes Gebhard, 27 Nov. 1899; G. Russell to Hannes Gebhard, 11, 16 Jan. 1900 (Kansallisarkisto, Helsinki (hereafter K.A.), Hannes Gebhardin arkisto, Saapuneet kirjeet I, 1882–1932); Hannes Gebhard, ‘Agricultural organisation in Finland’ in Irish Homestead, 30 Dec. 1899 (Pellervo Seuran arkisto, Helsinki (hereafter Pellervo), press cuttings).

33 All references here are to the Swedish edition: Gebhard, Hannes, Andelsvärksamhet bland jordbrukarna! Tre föredrag (Helsingfors, 1899)Google Scholar.

34 Gebhard, Andelsvärksamhet, p. 9: ‘det största elände, folkets sedliga förvildning och dess ekonomiska förslappning … deras präster förföljdes såsom vilda djur’.

35 Throughout his lecture Gebhard refers to the small farmers as ‘torpare’ (in Finnish ‘torppari’). This term is sometimes translated into English as crofter, but ‘tenant farmer’ seems more appropriate. For further discussion of the term ‘torppari’ see Suodenjoki, ‘Land agitation’, n. 8.

36 Gebhard, Andelsvärksamhet, p. 14: ‘för de lägre folkklassernas höjande i såväl ekonomiskt som sedligt och samhälleligt afseende’.

37 Ibid., p. 22. Gebhard writes that in England ‘[t]he independent peasant class has disappeared and in its place has grown up a class of large property owners and a working population living in misery’ (‘Den själfständiga allmogeklassen har försvunnit och i dess ställe har uppvuxit en klass af stora godsägare och en i elände lefvande arbetarebefolkning’).

38 Ibid., pp 54–6: ‘kringvarande “laukkufinnar” med “laukkun” full af praktiska kunskaper’.

39 Ibid., p. 54.

40 Jani Marjanen, ‘Den ekonomiska patriotismens uppgång och fall: Finska hushållningssällskapet i europeisk, svensk och finsk kontext, 1720-1840’ (Ph.D. thesis, Helsinki University, 2013), pp 40–3, 157, 191–2. Gebhard also made a brief reference to the Dublin Society in his book on agricultural cooperation abroad: Gebhard, Maanviljejäin yhteistoiminnasta, p. 19.

41 In this respect they were very different to the Danish agricultural co-operative movement, for example, as noted by Henriksen, Ingrid, McLaughlin, Eoin and Sharp, Paul, ‘Contracts and cooperation: the relative failure of the Irish dairy industry in the late nineteenth century reconsidered’ in European Review of Economic History, 19 (2015), p. 417 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 See Östman, ‘Civilising and mobilising the peasantry’, p. 127.

43 Ibid., pp 133–5.

44 ‘En tredje reseinstruktör i Sällskapet Pellervo’ in Pellervo (Feb. 1902), p. 70. All references to the journal Pellervo are to the Swedish edition (accessed through the Finnish National Library Digital Collections, http://digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi/aikakausi) (25 May 2017).

45 ‘A model co-operative country’ in International Co-operative Bulletin (Feb. 1913), pp 33–7.

46 G. Russell to Hannes Gebhard, 16 Nov. 1900 (K.A., Hannes Gebhardin saapuneet kirjeet); also cited in Hilson, ‘Transnational networks’, p. 94.

47 Kuisma, Markku, Henttinen, Annastiina, Karhu, Sami and Pohls, Maritta, The Pellervo story: a century of Finnish cooperation 1899-1999, trans. Michael Wynne-Ellis (Helsinki, 1999), p. 12 Google Scholar.

48 Pellervo to Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, 20 Dec.1912 (Pellervo, Ulkomaankirjeenvaihtoa, 1911–1925); Russell, George W., Co-operation and nationality: a guide for rural reformers from this to the next generation (Dublin, 1912)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; published in Finnish as Russell, George W., Osuustoiminta ja kansan hyvinvointi, trans. Huvi Vuorinen (Porvoo, 1912)Google Scholar.

49 Hannes Gebhard to Axel Granström, 1901 (K.A., HGn arkisto; microfilm PR91): ‘För dem, som bilda andelslag, måste den ekonomiska sidan vara den bestämmande, de bilda andelslag för att förtjäna pengar’. Also cited in Hilson, ‘Transnational networks’, p. 90.

50 Ad. R. ‘Några iaktagelser från en resa till England och Irland’ in Pellervo (Oct. 1905), pp 275–279 Google Scholar: ‘Irland borde vara den mest fruktade konkurrenten för de skandinaviska länderna och Finlands mejerier’.

51 Pellervo (Nov. 1905), p. 321; (Mar. 1906), p. 67; (Sept. 1907), p. 282; (July 1909), p. 235; (Sept. 1910), p. 252.

52 Russell, Co-operation and nationality, p. 16. Elsewhere (p. 40), Russell criticised modern agriculture and land use more explicitly: ‘the deer forests in Scotland, the game preserves in England, the deserts of grass in Ireland, are gigantic illustrations of ... desolation and decay’.

53 Anderson, R. A., ‘Agricultural co-operation in Ireland’ in Report of the proceedings of the eighth congress of the international co-operative alliance held at Hamburg, 5th to 7th September, 1910 (London, 1910), p. 120 Google Scholar. I.C.A. congresses were usually held every three years, in different European cities.

54 Doyle, ‘“Better farming”’, p. 111, table 2.1. Carla Keating gives a figure of 916 co-operatives in 1915 with a total membership of 105,541. Over a third of co-operative membership was accounted for by dairy co-operatives. See: Keating, Carla, ‘Plunkett, the co-operative movement and Irish rural development’ in eadem (ed.), Plunkett and co-operatives: past, present and future (Cork, 1983), p. 61 Google Scholar.

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58 On the idea of a Finnish ‘middle way’, see Jackson, J. Hampden, Finland (London, 1938), p. 15 Google Scholar; Miklóssy, Katalin, ‘The Nordic ideal of a Central European third way: the Finnish model of Hungarian modernisation in the 1930s’ in Hilson, Markkola & Östman (eds), Co-operatives and the social question, pp 137–152 Google Scholar.

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60 Coyne, Edward J, ‘Finland and its lessons for Ireland’ in Studies, xxviii, no. 112 (1939), p. 661 Google Scholar.

61 On the significance of cooperation in the Nordic countries see: Mordhorst, Mads, ‘Arla and Danish national identity – business history as cultural history’in Business History, lvi, no. 1 (2014), pp 116–133 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fellman, Susanna, ‘Growth and investment: Finnish capitalism, 1850s–2005’ in Susanna Fellman, Martin Jes Iversen, Hans Sjögren and Lars Thue (eds), Creating Nordic capitalism: the business history of a competitive periphery (Basingstoke, 2008), pp 139–217 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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63 Ó Gráda, Ireland, p. 269; cf., however, Gráda, Cormac Ó, ‘The beginnings of the Irish creamery system, 1880–1914’ in Economic History Review, xxx, no. 2 (1977), pp 284–305 Google Scholar.

64 Bielenberg, Andy and Ryan, Raymond, An economic history of Ireland since independence (London, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 Mathews, Revival, pp 6–7; MacPherson, D. A. J., Women and the Irish nation: gender, culture and Irish identity, 1890–1914 (Basingstoke, 2012), p. 30 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66 Doyle, Patrick Mary, ‘Reframing the “Irish Question”: the role of the Irish co-operative movement in the formation of Irish nationalism, 1900–22’ in Irish Studies Review, xxii, no. 3 (2014), p. 268 Google Scholar; Doyle, ‘“Better farming”’, pp 23–4, 39–40, 128, 135–8, 157.

67 Mathews, Revival, p. 31.

68 McAteer, Michael, ‘Reactionary conservatism or radical utopianism? Æ and the Irish co-operative movement’ in Éire-Ireland, xxxv, nos 3–4 (2000–2001), pp 148–162 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Æ see also Lane, Leeann, ‘Female emigration and the cooperative movement in the writings of George Russell’ in New Hibernia Review/Iris Éireannach Nua, viii, no. 4 (2004), pp 84–100 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nash, Catherine, ‘Visionary geographies: designs for developing Ireland’ in History Workshop Journal, xlv (1998), pp 49–78 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69 Daly, The first department, pp 126–38.

70 Guinnane, ‘A failed institutional transplant’, pp 28–61; Colvin & McLaughlin, ‘Raiffeisenism abroad’, pp 1–25. Earlier debates on Ireland’s ‘failure’ to become ‘a second Denmark’ are discussed in Gráda, Cormac Ó, ‘Irish agriculture after the Land War’ in Stanley L. Engerman and Jacob Metzer (eds), Land rights, ethno-nationality, and sovereignty in history (London, 2004), p. 138 Google Scholar.

71 O’Rourke, ‘Property rights, politics and innovation’, pp 359–417.

72 Lyons, Ireland since the Famine, pp 208–9. On the controversy following Plunkett’s book see also Bolger, The Irish co-operative movement, pp 93–5.

73 West, Horace Plunkett, p. 221; Yhteishyvä, 21 Feb. 1936.

74 Kennelly, ‘The “dawn of the practical”’, pp 73–9; Daly, The first department, pp 7–8.

75 Daly, The first department, pp 44–5.

76 Henriksen, McLaughlin & Sharp, ‘Contracts and cooperation’, pp 412–31.

77 In a review of Anderson’s book With Horace Plunkett in Ireland, published in the Irish Times in 1935, Belgium was also noted, with Finland, as an example of what cooperation could achieve in Ireland (Irish Times, 22 June 1935).

78 Gide, Charles, ‘A review of world co-operation’ in International Co-operative Bulletin (Mar. 1926), pp 65–71 Google Scholar.

79 McIntosh, Alastair, Soil and soul: people versus corporate power (London, 2001), pp 37–46 Google Scholar. Similarly, romantic allusions to the ‘communism of the clan’ also formed part of radical visions for an independent Scottish state during the 1920s, propagated for example by Ruaraidh Erskine of Marr of the Scots National League. See Gouriévidis, Laurence, The dynamics of heritage: history, memory and the highland clearances (Farnham, 2010), pp 34–35 Google Scholar.

80 Fernández, Eva, ‘Trust, religion and co-operation in western agriculture, 1880–1930’ in Economic History Review, lxvii, no. 3 (2014), p. 695 Google Scholar. In order to assure comparability of statistics across so many cases, Fernández uses the percentage share of production and marketing of agricultural products accounted for by co-operative societies, rather than the number of societies or membership.

81 Cf., however, Kennedy, Liam, ‘Aspects of the spread of the creamery system in Ireland’ in Keating (ed.), Plunkett and cooperatives, pp 92–110 Google Scholar, who notes that the highest concentration of co-operative creameries was in Munster and Ulster, casting doubt on the notion of a link between religion and cooperation.

82 Ó Gráda, ‘Irish agriculture’, p. 144. See also Kennedy, Liam, ‘The early response of the Irish Catholic clergy to the co-operative movement’ in I.H.S., xxi, no. 81 (1978), pp 55–74 Google Scholar. Kennedy suggests that priests often found themselves caught between the farmers and the local traders, who were overwhelmingly hostile to co-operatives. In an attempt to smooth relations, the I.A.O.S. published an exchange of letters between Plunkett and John Joseph Clancy, bishop of Elphin (Irish Times, 13 June 1908).

83 On Mondragon see Molina, Fernando and Miguez, Antonio, ‘The origins of Mondragon: Catholic co-operativism and social movement in a Basque valley (1941–59)’ in Social History, xxxiii, no. 3 (2008), pp 284–298 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on the Greek Catholic Church and co-operatives, see Wawrzeniuk, Piotr, ‘Salvation and deliverance: the Greek Catholic Church and the Ruthenian co-operative movement as agents of modernisation in Galicia, 1899–1914’ in Hilson, Markkola & Östman (eds), Co-operatives and the social question, pp 103–120 Google Scholar; on Catholicism and cooperation, see also Fitzpatrick-Behrens, Susan and LeGrand, Catherine C., ‘Canadian and US Catholic promotion of co-operatives in central America and the Caribbean and their implications’ in Mary Hilson, Silke Neunsinger and Greg Patmore (eds), A global history of consumer co-operation since 1850: movements and businesses (Leiden, 2017), pp 145–175 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

84 O’Rourke, ‘Culture, conflict and co-operation’, pp 1357–79; idem, , ‘Late nineteenth-century Denmark in an Irish mirror: land tenure, homogeneity and the roots of Danish success’ in John L. Campbell, John A. Hall and Ove Pedersen (eds), National identity and the varieties of capitalism: the Danish experience (Montreal, 2006), pp 186–189 Google Scholar, 192–3.

85 Gebhard, Hannes, Co-operation in Finland, ed. Lionel Smith-Gordon (London, 1916)Google Scholar.

86 Gebhard, Co-operation in Finland; editor’s note, p. viii; also cited in Hilson, ‘Transnational networks’, p. 96.

87 Pellervo (Gebhard) to the Co-operative Reference Library (C.R.L.), Dublin, 16 Dec. 1914, 28 Apr. 1916; C.R.L. (Lionel Smith-Gordon) to Gebhard, 27 Mar. 1916, 29 Nov. 1916, 25 May 1917; Williams and Norgate to Pellervo, 27 June 1917; Pellervo to Williams and Norgate, 28 June 1917 (Pellervo, Ulkomaankirjeenvaihtoa, 1911–1925). See also Hilson, ‘Transnational networks’, pp 95–6.

88 Rhodes, Rita, Empire and co-operation: how the British Empire used co-operatives in its development strategies, 1900–1970 (Edinburgh, 2012), pp 70–71 Google Scholar, 171–92; Plunkett Foundation website (http://www.plunkett.co.uk/aboutus/history.cfm) (17 Apr. 2015).

89 Hannes Gebhard to Horace Plunkett Foundation, 16 Jan. 1925 (K.A., HGn arkisto, microfilm PR91).

90 Doyle, ‘“Better farming”’, pp 147–8. See also Allen, Nicholas, ‘A revolutionary co-operation: George Russell and James Connolly’ in New Hibernia Review/Iris Éireannach Nua, iv, no. 3 (2000), pp 46–64 Google Scholar.

91 Jenkins, ‘Capitalists and co-operators’, pp 100–03; Doyle, ‘“Better farming”’, pp 80–7. On the C.W.S. in Ireland, see also Wilson, John F., Webster, Anthony and Vorberg-Rugh, Rachael, Building co-operation: a business history of the Co-operative Group, 1863–2013 (Oxford, 2013), pp 127–130. This article draws on research carried out as part of a larger research project on the history of the co-operative movements in the Nordic countries, begun during a period as visiting researcher at the Centre for Nordic Studies, Helsinki University, supported by the Nordic Centre of Excellence NordWel. The present article arose out of collaborative work with Pirjo Markkola and Ann-Catrin Östman. Thanks also to Johanna Rainio-Niemi, Andrew Newby and the anonymous referees of Irish Historical Studies for their helpful commentsGoogle Scholar.