142 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



great War, has put a spoke into this wheel, which probably the War 

 itself has brought to a complete standstill. 



Co-operation has been busy on the same task in Belgium, but only 

 to a small extent. And in that country, under a different system — 

 a very good one — adopted by the General Savings Bank, which 

 is a national institution, it is rather un-co-operative building 

 societies, based upon a definite number of shares subscribed, for the 

 value of which their holders are liable, which derive the greatest 

 benefit — precisely because there is in them a fixed capital to make 

 responsible for the loans. However, co-operative building societies 

 likewise benefit by the practice. But since their capital necessarily 

 is a variable quantity, which accordingly cannot be pledged, that 

 benefit is smaller. Those Belgian building societies, however, do 

 a great deal of excellent work. They make the acquisition of a 

 dwelling — in rural parts as well as in urban — very easy to the 

 acquirer by advancing practically the entire capital required for 

 the building. The Savings Bank provides nine-tenths, but there 

 are philanthropic societies, which supplement such advance by the 

 missing tenth, on which business, their managers have assured me, 

 they make no loss. The Belgian General Savings Bank, by 

 the way, was — under the direction of its late director, M. Orner 

 Lepreux — the first institution to introduce the most useful method 

 of combining life insurance with building business, so as to wind up 

 the building account in any case at the borrower's death, to the 

 benefit of his family. This Belgian organisation of building finance 

 is decidedly worth studying by our social reformers. I did my best 

 to bring it under their attention by inviting M. Omer Lepreux to 

 attend the fifth of our International Co-operative Congresses at 

 Manchester in 1902, on which occasion he delivered a highly instruc- 

 tive report, which was embodied in the Proceedings of that 

 Congress. The process has been still more improved since then. 



In other countries building societies are, of course, highly useful 

 provident institutions — like our own, which have for the most part 

 served as models for them — but not really co-operative. In the 

 United States they have accomplished an immense amount of good, 

 both in their modern shape, which is very like that of our own, and 

 in their original form, in which they provided actually everything 

 that was required, except the site — upholstery, furniture and all 

 the complete outfit — the acquirer taking up shares of a value 

 equivalent to the outlay, and paying up the amount so borrowed 

 by periodical instalments, the last of which fully cleared his account. 



There is one more, perhaps, even more directly useful service to 



