PROVISION OF BORROWING FACILITIES. 287 



readily and thoroughly develop essential national qualities ; those 

 eystems of banking are to be preferred which tend in themselves to 

 this result, and the efforts of the State whether in its legislative or in 

 its executive capacity, should be directed towards the promotion of 

 such systems. Not joint stock banks merely, still less State banks, 

 or banks financed by the State for the mere issue of capital, but Mutual 

 Credit Unions, are the desideratum ; co-operative societies, where the 

 isolated learn the value and powers of association, where the ignorant 

 are taught the lessons of business, the reckless learn needfulness, thrift 

 and prudence, the idle and intemperate return to industry and sobriety ; 

 where the prudent, the sober, the skilful, the well-to-do unite with 

 the poorer and weaker brethern in an association of mutual help and 

 insensible self -development. 



Poverty and indebtedness may not disappear even when such 

 systems attain full vigour and extension, but the student not of mere 

 economics, but of national character and development cannot but 

 believe that a nation in which such institutions are matters of course 

 in every village, will be in the way of development as a nation of 

 temperate, self-reliant, independent, yet united men. This is no 

 dream of Utopia, for systems, still in their infancy even though 

 their societies are numbered by thousands, are working on these 

 lines. 



It is unnecesary to dwell here in detail on the need for thrift ; 



it is self-evident, especially in these days of provident institutions. 

 * # # 



There is, however, room in India as in the "West, for many classes 

 of banks ; the joint stock bank is of value in its command of resources, 

 and in its skilled management ; the co-operative union is a desideratum 

 for every village ; the Mont de Piete y probably as a branch of some 

 other institution, is particularly needed in a country where savings 

 are invented in jewellery ; the savings bank whether as a separate 

 entity, r>rimarily for the receipt of deposits, and secondarily as an 

 investor of those deposits in safe loans, the Agricultural Association 

 with a credit annex, the land and land improvement bank for the 

 larger estates and enterprises, the village clubs for the purchase and 

 supply of stock, the village granary or Posito, storing surplus grain 

 at harvest and lending it out in the cultivation season, will all find 

 place and work in a duly organized system of credit ; it is not 



