168 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



to devise a different system of credit. But they have in a very 

 great measure served as an inspiration to it, and served to extend 

 its adoption and to identify it in public opinion specifically with 

 agriculture. 



Raiffeisen's main aim was to bring help to the poor, even the 

 very poor, whose sufferings and losses owing to the want of working 

 funds he had witnessed — the poor in country districts, owners of 

 peasant holdings, as they might be, or others without such holdings. 

 Since cash could not be conveniently asked for from them, at any 

 rate without causing severe privation, and in many cases without 

 keeping out persons who ought to have been admitted as needing 

 assistance most — according to a self-evident maxim, of which 

 Leon Say has made himself the exponent — there must, to meet the 

 requirements of such people, be unlimited liability. The joint 

 liability of a number of men, all of them possessing something, 

 and certainly all of them anxiously desirous — in their own interest, 

 and as a matter of honour, in the face of their neighbours and 

 fellow members, for whom they make themselves answerable, as 

 others do for them — not to be sold up, will secure credit from 

 outside, and it will certainly command sufficient confidence to 

 attract proportionally substantial deposits in its own district. For 

 it represents, after all, capital and highly intensified responsibility. 

 The question of attracting credit from without occasioned 

 difficulties at the outset. The system was new. The movement 

 was at first dependent upon its well-wishers, who might have a 

 little money to put in. However, it soon got over this obstacle. 

 A public inquiry established its soundness. Capitalists came to 

 trust it and were not disappointed. In course of time even 

 the Imperial Bank of Germany, recognising its solidity and 

 security, opened to it a large credit on preferential terms. And 

 now it occupies a commanding position in the money market, with 

 plenty of counters open to it from which to obtain what it may 

 want in excess of its own resources, let alone that it has attracted 

 so much money in deposits that many of its little banks have cash 

 to spare over and above what they need to disburse in credit. For 

 it is a peculiar merit of these banks that, systematically encouraging 

 thrift, they powerfully attract confidence and attachment in their 

 own district. Local people will sooner deposit in them than in the 

 public savings bank, because they can see what becomes of their 

 money, which is not carried up to some great " wen " (Cobbett's 

 word), " to appreciate Consols," but is laid out productively in the 

 locality itself and for its own benefit. They also like to have a savings 



