336 PROVISION OP BORROWING FACILITIES. 



in India, does not make the mortgagor responsible for deterioration of 

 the property mortgaged. But the clause seems indefensible where the 

 demand is necessitated by the position of the society ; it is the duty of 

 the society so to arrange its affairs as not to require at call loans 

 which have been laid out perhaps in improvements yielding slow 

 profits ; such a clause must produce a sense of uncertainty, 

 and might be means of harassing debtors disagreeable to the 

 directorate. 



As pointed out above, the loans are usually small ; some fall as low 

 as 10 or 20 shillings, showing the class of peasants who are admitted 

 as members. The largest number of loans are those falling between 

 5 and 25, the average appears to be about 15, or less than half of 

 the average of 33 in the Schulze Delitzesch societies. 



The general rate of interest is 5 per cent., with a commission 

 which raises it to 5J or 6 per cent. It is usual now to take this 

 commission in a single payment on the day the loan is granted; it is 

 usually 1 per cent, of the total for a loan of one year ; it aggregates 2 

 per cent, for loans up to five years, and 3 per cent, for those between 

 five and ten years. This commission pays the expenses of adminis- 

 tration. 



With all the care taken to fix the easiest instalments and dates of 

 repayment, it is found that the un punctuality of the peasants is a 

 standing difficulty ; they cannot, without vast trouble, be got to under- 

 stand the absolute necessity of punctuality, and much tact is required 

 to avoid, on the one hand, a sudden severity which would deter them 

 from becoming members and taking loans, and on the other, a lenity 

 which would soon ruin the society. An official Commission in 1875 

 commented on this fact, and found that the lenity of the administra- 

 tion on this point encouraged the peasants in their faults. * 



On this point the Neuwied central directorate allege (1) that the 

 loans were frequently granted imprudently by the local societies, 

 chiefly from a false idea of benevolence or compassion ; (2) that bad 

 harvests, especially in the nine districts (e.g., Coblentz), caused much 

 distress and necessary delay. 



It seems, however, also true that some local societies shrank from 

 pressing their debtors, fearing to drive them again into the hands of 

 the usurers ; they did not insist on punctuality and thereby strengthened 

 the peasants in bad habits ; also that the debtors had the means of 

 payment, had they been pressed, and did eventually pay up. 



