PROVISION OF BORROWING FACILITIES. 893 



burgomaster to Heddesdorf, near Neuwied on the Rhine, he 

 founded a third benevolent society with various objects, but 

 especially for the procuring of cattle for, and the granting of credit 

 to, poorer farmers. This society, which gradually became merely 

 a loan society, was composed of well-to-do inhabitants living 

 in or near the village of Heddesdorf, who lent to less 

 fortunate inhabitants of the area, obtaining capital on the security 

 of their collective unlimited liability. The assisted persons had 

 nothing to do with the society, whose members acted as guaranteeing 

 intermediaries between the capitalist and themselves. The first 

 association founded by RAIFFEISEN in which the fundamental co- 

 operative idea of the collective liability of the borrowers themselves 

 appears, was that of Anhausen (1862). There were already in 

 existence co-operative societies with unlimited collective liability, 

 which had been created by SCHULZE of Delitzsch, a small town in the 

 Province of Saxony, for the purpose of procuring credit for their mem- 

 bers, who were mainly artisans, small employers of labour, and small 

 shopkeepers. But RAIFFEISEN had in view the needs of agriculturists. 

 At the present time the majority of Raiffeisen banks in Germany 

 may be said to present the following features : 



Limitation of area, so as to secure mutual personal knowledge 



on the part of members ; 

 Low shares ; 



Permanent indivisible reserve fund ; 

 Unlimited liability of the members ; 

 Loans only for productive or provident purposes ; 

 Loans only to members ; 

 Credit for relatively long periods with facilities for repayment 



by instalments; 



The determination every year by the members of each society 



of the maximum credit that may be held by individual 



** members at any time as well as of the maximum total 



of saving deposits receivable and of loans that may be 



taken up by the society ; 



Absence of profit-seeking, dividends if paid being usually 

 limited, as a maximum, to the rate of interest paid by 

 borrowers for loans ; 



Office holders, with the exception of the secretary, not paid for 

 their services ; 



SO 



