Measures Taken to Encourage The Co-Operative Movement in Palestine before 1948 (Nakba), British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume I - Page 357. Chapter IX: Agriculture: Section 5: Agricultural Credit and Co-operative Societies: (b)

CHAPTER IX.
view of the need for rehabilitation, i.e. replacement of packing sheds, pumps and pipes etc. estimated to involve the investment of several million pounds. Proposals are therefore under consideration for the establishment of a Government land bank to deal with the future financing of citriculture and agriculture generally, and the repayment of the outstanding citrus advances.

(b) Measures taken to encourage the co-operative movement.

115. Co-operative theories and practices were introduced into Palestine before the first world war by Jewish farmers, small tradesmen and agricultural labourers who formed associations for collective marketing, processing, purchasing and borrowing. Although the business of these associations was conducted on a cooperative has is, the associations themselves were not registered bodies and had no formal existence under the prevailing Ottoman Law. Owing to this legal deficiency the associations made slow progress, and their growth was stunted.

116. Co-operation as a live and progressive movement only came into being in Palestine after the British occupation. When the civil administration was set up in 1920 it proceeded with the promulgation of a number of modern laws in order to provide commerce and industry with the facilities and authority which a body of modern statute laws could alone confer. One of the first of these laws was the Co-operative Societies Ordinance* modeled upon the Indian Co-operative Societies Act, 1912. In order to meet the conditions of Palestine the new Ordinance deviated in a number of respects from its Indian prototype and some of these deviations were of such significance as to influence the whole course of the future development of the movement.

117. While the Indian Co-operative Societies Act chiefly contemplated societies for the provision of agricultural and industrial credits, the Palestine law expanded the purposes for which societies could be registered. It provided for societies for loans and savings, for saving banks and co-operative banks, for societies for the purchase of raw materials for industrial and agricultural purposes, for societies of producers for the sale of their produce and services, for stores for the acquisition and use in common of machinery and other implements of production, and for building and housing societies. The effect of this dilation was that the movement in Palestine became very diversified. Many types of societies were formed with numerous and widely varying objects and purposes. Standardized types were completely absent and
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* October, 1920. The Ordinance at present in force was enacted in 1933. Drayton, vol. I, page 360.



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