So far, this effort to extend and regulate the movement came rather from outside sympathizers than from cooeperators themselves. With 1869, however, began a series of annual Cooeperative Congresses which, like the annual Trade Union Congresses, have sprung from the initiative of workingmen themselves and which are still continued. Papers are read, addresses made, experiences compared, and most important of all a Central Board and a Parliamentary Committee elected for the ensuing year. At the thirty-first annual Congress, held in Liverpool in 1899, there were 1205 delegates present, representing over a million members of cooeperative societies. Since 1887 a "Cooeperative Festival," or exhibition of the products of cooeperative workshops and factories, has been held each year in connection with the Congress. This exhibition is designed especially to encourage cooeperative production. At the first Congress, in 1869, a Cooeperative Union was formed which aims to include all the cooeperative societies of the country, and as a matter of fact does include about three-fourths of them. The Central Cooeperative Board represents this Union. It is divided into seven sections, each having charge of the affairs of one of the seven districts into which the country is divided for cooeperative work. The Board issues a journal, prints pamphlets, keeps up correspondence, holds public examinations on auditing, book-keeping, and the principles of cooeperation, and acts as a statistical, propagandist, and regulative body. There is also a "Cooeperative Guild" and a "Women's Cooeperative Guild," the latter with 262 branches and a membership of 12,537, in 1898. The total number of recognized cooeperative societies in existence at the beginning of the year 1900 has been estimated at 1640, with a combined membership of 1,640,078, capital of L19,759,039, and investments of L11,681,296. The sale of goods in the year 1898 was L65,460,871, and net profits had amounted to L7,165,753. During the year 1898, 181 new societies of various kinds were formed.