CO-OPERATION IN FOOD-SUPPLY 181 



^ millions sterling. To prove that their operations 

 really came home to the small man, one may mention 

 that over three-quarters of these loans were for sums 

 of ^50 or less. The Raiffeisen type is an excellent 

 example of a primitive but quite thorough kind of 

 co-operative society. The thing is perfectly sound, 

 because it is conducted on sound principles, and 

 it meets the first great demand of the agriculturist- 

 easy credit. The Raiffeisen system has undergone 

 many developments in Germany. In 1910 there were 

 more than 15,000 agricultural loan and savings banks 

 of various kinds, associated with and partly financed 

 by 36 central banks, the total turnover of which in 

 1909 was more than 245 millions sterling. 



The example of Germany has been widely followed 

 elsewhere, including most of the European countries. 

 Outside Europe, the system, or rather a modification 

 of the system, has been developed, largely on Govern- 

 ment initiative, in India for just the same purpose. 

 There it is run locally, but supervised by Government, 

 and the members of the local societies accept unlimited 

 liability quite freely. Part of the magnificent work 

 of Sir Horace Plunkett in Ireland has been the for- 

 mation of credit societies, and this has been a tre- 

 mendous boon to the honest and industrious Irish 

 agriculturist, whom it has rescued from the slavery 

 of the money-lenders. In England there has as yet 

 been little development in this direction, though there 

 has been much talk recently about land banks. 



The second great need of the agriculturist is to 

 obtain at a fair price and of good quality the neces- 

 saries for carrying on his work, that is to say, agri- 

 cultural machinery, implements of all kinds, seeds, 

 fertilizers, and so on. Exactly the same kind of 

 thing happened in Germany in this connection. The 

 farmers found that they were rapidly coming under 



