312 PROVISION OF BORROWING FACILITIES. 



of less than ten shillings, while it is on record that these societies 

 form everywhere centres of economic and even of moral progress. 

 These are sober facts and not coloured pictures of the imagination. 

 These banks are not all of one type ; in Germany there are the 

 SCHULZE-DELITZSCH and RAIFFEISEN societies with their offshoots ; Italy 

 has developed a type of its own, and Austria- Hungary while imitating 

 those of Germany, has not made unlimited liability a necessary 

 principle. They appear to be capable of assuming various forms 

 according to idiosyncrasies of the several countries ; only in all there 

 must be the common foundation principles of thrift and honesty. 

 They are of great simplicity and are started and managed by the 

 people of small villages. There are no losses when the directors keep 

 the fundamental rules of the society, and avoid speculation or doubtful 

 loans for the sake of extending business or obtaining hi^h interest, 



C* CJ ^J * 



for they develop an amount of devotion on the part of their members 

 which prevents them from allowing the banks or their fellow members 

 to lose by their default ; the clientele is of the lower middle and lower 

 classes both urban and rural, tens of thousands of members possessing 

 absolutely no property except their honesty, prudence and capacity for 

 work. 



SCHULZE-DELITZSCH LOAN SOCIETIES. 



History HERR SCHULZE DELITZSCH was a Village Magistrate who, 

 having studied the working classes of the towns and rural tracts, was 

 called to the Prussian National Assembly in 1848. Subsequently 

 troubled by party intrigues he resigned Government service and 

 devoted himself with but slight pecuniary resources, to the elevation 

 of those whom he saw oppressed not merely with want of wealth but 

 with want of the power to perceive, to strive after and to attain better 

 things, a higher social, mental and moral development. Be it 



remembered that the work of SCHULZE DELIT"ZSCH was in its aim no 



^ 

 less than in its results essentially educational in the highest sense of 



the word and not merely material. The country and the people were 

 habituated to live under Government wardship, and to look to the 

 State for all improvements and for all deliverance from difficulties and 

 misfortunes. SCHULZE DELITZSCH saw that it was essential, if the 

 nation was to become worthy of the name, to turn the masses ., 

 towards self-help, and to accustom them to rely on their own efforts 

 and their own initiative to work out their national salvation. He 



