394 PROVISION OF BORROWING FACILITIES. 



ineement 



Promotion of the moral as well as the material advancemenl 

 of members, and in particular the purchase of agricul- 

 tural requisites for sale to members and often the 

 procuring of agricultural machines and implements for 

 letting on hire to members. 



Compared with the ordinary urban credit societies of ^the Schulze- 

 Delitzsch type, which were originally organised for the special purpose 

 of furnishing credit to small traders, employers and artisans in 

 towns, many important differences appear. The areas of the banks 

 of the latter kind are not narrowly limited, shares are high, being 

 rarely less than 15, and sometimes reaching 75 and 100; there 

 is no indivisible reserve ; loans are usually made only for terms of 

 three months, when they are subject to renewal, and are repayable 

 in a lump sum, dividends, sometimes very high dividends, are paid ; 

 regular banking offices are maintained with at least two permanent 

 paid officials, who form the committee of management, while the 

 members of the board of supervision receive remuneration ; the 

 banks confine themselves to pure banking business; and their offices 

 are usually in towns. At the beginning of 1912, out of a total 

 membership of 641,429 members in 1,002 credit societies, 26'61 

 per cent, were returned as " independent farmers, gardeners, foresters, 

 and fishermen." In certain districts farmers are attached in large 

 numbers tj these societies, which had spread, notably in the smaller 

 towns of the eastern provinces of Prussia, before the Raiffeisen 

 movement was introduced in those parts. Thus for 85 Schulze- 

 Delitzsch societies in east and west Prussia, having at that date 

 a total membership of 60,391, 29,278 were returned as belonging to 

 the four classes just mentioned; for 34 in Posen 11,136 out of a 

 total 22,233; and for 80 in Silesia 18,451 out of a total of 59,039. 

 In many cases where a noteworthy percentage of such members 

 is returned, they are to a great extent large farmers, the particular 

 society meets the special needs of landowners by making loans for 

 longer terms than the majority of Schulze-Delitzsch banks do, 

 allows easy terms of repayment, and in other ways adopts the usual 

 principles of the Raiffeisen societies. There is also a certain mimber 

 who become members, not with a view to borrowing, but merely for 

 the sake of investment of savings, either as shares or as deposits, at 

 a high rate of interest shares are frequently as high as 75, and ' 

 dividends at (> or 7 per cent, not uncommon this is probably 



