PROVISION OF BORROWING FACILITIES. 395 



especially true of a large proportion of the women members returned 

 as belonging to this group and who numbered 13,203 out of a total 

 of 170,073, or 7"? per cent., in 1911. 



As it is a principle of the Schulze-Delitzsch system that the 

 area chosen should be of a kind to allow of the development of a 

 regular banking business capable of supporting a salaried staff of at 

 least two persons and of yielding substantial dividends on shares, these 

 societies are established in towns or must cover fairly wide areas. 

 The feasibility of the minute supervision of their credits is thus 

 -diminished and their usefulness to smaller farmers seriously impaired. 

 Their large membership renders impossible personal relations between 

 members : in 1911 the average membership was 623, and there were 

 societies with 11,650 members, 8,987 members, and several with from 

 2,000 to 5,000. Their business attains sometimes immense proportions : 

 some banks visited by the writer showed annual turnovers of 

 21,000,000, 10,700,000, 6,700,000,and 3,600,000. Their credit 

 is dearer and for shorter periods than that granted by the Raiffeisen 

 banks. They represent in a large measure commercial, profit-seeking 

 undertakings, being rather companies of lenders having as their 

 primary object the earning of dividends rather than the provision 

 of cheap credit. Many have developed into ordinary commercial 

 banks, others have been absorbed or converted into branches of large 

 joint-stock banks. The smaller societies tend, however, by reason 

 of their being localised institutions with organs of administration 

 composed of many persons representative of the various producing 

 classes of members, to be in a better position than proprietary or 

 joint-stock banks to judge the character and standing of such persons, 

 and thus aid small men unable to furnish ordinary banking security. 

 The general unsuitability of this type of society for German farmers 

 is shown by the circumstance that, while they have made no progress 

 in country districts the Raiffeisen type continues to spread in these 

 districts. 



The principal functions of Raiffesen banks are: (1) to meet the 

 needs of their members for supplementary personal credit or current 

 working capital, (2) to promote thrift among the rural population 

 by receivng their savings as well as the savings of non-members 

 and paying interest thereon, and (3) to act in general as the village 

 banker. They are not meant to supply members with their entire 

 working capital but to supplement it; and, speaking generally, they 



