PROVISION OP BORROWING FACILITIES. 329 



usually decides matters which, in an ordinary society, are dealt with 

 by directors ; it is a small democracy with direct working powers. 



All services rendered by the administration are absolutely 

 gratuitous, only expenses out of pocket, if any, are payable to them ; 

 the area and number of operations being small, and the accounts 

 simple, there is but little trouble. The accountant is the only paid 

 official and must not be a member of either committee ; security, 

 personal or material, is required from him. He is generally the 

 village school-master, sometimes a forest officer, frequently a tax- 

 collector, and the remuneration is small. In India the school-master, 

 or monigar or kurnam would naturally hold the post. There is an 

 economy about the German and Italian arrangements very striking 

 to an Indian observer, who is accustomed to see every petty Indian 

 association, village union, reading-room, &c., spend much of its 

 scanty funds on establishment. 



The accounts are very simple, sometimes rough ; but they are now 

 regularly audited by inspectors sent round from the central office of 

 the group to which each society respectively belongs ; these 

 inspectors pay frequent visits, point out errors, explain the proper 

 methods and forms of book-keeping, and act generally as auditors 

 ab extra. Their services are paid for not by each society, but by the 

 central office of the group to which each society subscribes annually. 



It will be observed from the above that not only is the 

 establishment of the societies dependent upon local devotion, but 

 that, once started, they bring men together in association and tend 

 to develop in them a most useful and enlightened public spirit ; 

 they are not merely centres of economic but of social and even 

 of moral progress. Moreover, these societies do not spring up 

 from the inherent and active love of progress in the village ; the 

 peasantry of Germany are not very different from other peasantry ; 

 it has been only by the unwearied and incessant devotion and energy 

 of RA.iPPEtSEN' and his immediate disciples in this propaganda, that, 

 after many years of effort and example, these societies have won 

 their slow way to acceptance by the villagers. In some cases the 

 suspicion or the villagers was overcome by the fact that their principal 

 men lent money or placed considerable deposits in the nascent bank; 

 this gave confidence, which, when once given, soon established itself 

 and the position of the society. It is invariably a case of local 

 energy, devotion and honesty. 

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