330 PROVISION OP BORROWING FACILITIES. 



Shares. Under the law of 1868 it was not clear whether a 

 share-capital was a necessity ; it is now placed beyond doubt by the 

 law of 1889, and consequently the Raiffeisen societies which formerly 

 rejected the share system, now require each member to subscribe a 

 small share, which, however, only averages 10s., and may be much 

 lower. Round this question was the principal strife between SCIIULZE 

 DELITZSCH and RAIFFEISEN; the former, accustomed only to townsmen, 

 who either had no property but only wages, or who, being in trade, 

 were subject to unseen risks, and who operated in trade matters 

 entirely out of sight and out of the control of the society, obliged his 

 associates to subscribe a considerable share-capital as a proof of their 

 thrift and sobriety, and as a material guarantee for their individual 

 and corporate debts ; but the Raiffeisen societies, dealing solely with 

 agriculturists and villagers, required no such security ; each member 

 possessed in his little farm, in his cattle and implements, &c., material 

 guarantees far beyond those of any subscribed shares. Moreover, 

 a peasant, even though he possesses property, has seldom any cash 

 in hand, and his savings are necessarily and best invested not in a 

 savings bank but in his fields or farm-yard ; finally, every act of a 

 peasant, the state of his crops and stock, his personal possessions, the 

 new dress he gives his wife, nay, every visit to the public house, 

 is perfectly well known to every other villager. For these reasons, 

 RAIFFEISEN considered that a share-capital is not only useless, but 

 mischievous ; useless for, as calculated, shares of even 3 only add 

 to the guarantee provided by the solidarity of the members of his 

 societies an additional guarantee of 5 or 6 per cent., since 

 the aggregate actual property of each member in land, house, 

 furniture, stock, &c., probably averages 50 in value ; mis- 

 cJiievoiiSy for it keeps money out of the land, members out of the 

 society, and induces a habit of looking for dividends, while the 

 necessity for giving dividends, pro tanto, retards the accumulation of 

 the reserve which is a prime necessity. What a peasant, wants is 

 often not property but simply cash, he is not a pauper, but he requires 

 floating capital ; and to demand a subscribed share, the value of 

 which is to be permanently locked up, may be, in view of his property, 

 an unnecessary burden. RAIFFEISEN, in obeying the law, fixed, 

 therefore, the shares at a very small amount, while encouraging the 

 peasant to place any spare cash in the Savings bank attached to the 1 

 society, whence it could be withdrawn at pleasure. 



