PROVISION OF BORROWING FACILITIES. 399 



might be advantageously transacted by non-profit-seeking organisa- 

 tions which at once understood and took account of the social financial 

 structure of co-operative societies and of the conditions of their 

 business. At the present time over 90 per cent, of the rural credit 

 societies are shareholders or members of co-operative central banks, of 

 which there are nearly fifty (including as separate banks the twelve 

 branches of the Raiffeisen Central Loan Bank) in Germany. 



These central banks are organised according to provinces or States. 

 The German Agricultural Central Loan Bank, founded by RAIFFEISEN 

 in 187G, extends its operations over the whole of Germany, but it has 

 decentralised its business by the creation of 12 branches, which limit 

 their operations to fixed areas co-extensive with a province, part of a 

 province, or adjoining provinces, a State or congeries of small States, 

 and which form in fact provincial banks. The other central banks in 

 Prussia are attached to the Prussian State Central Co-operative Bank, 

 which occupies in regard to them in some respects the same position 

 as the Raiffeisen Batik occupies in regard to its branches. The scheme] 

 of organisation for Prussian societies is, therefore : (1) local societies 

 balancing as far as possible monetary supply and demand among their 

 members ; (2) provincial banks adjusting similarly the needs of their 

 constituent local societies; and (3) larger organisations at Berlin 

 (namely, the State Bank and the Raiffeisen Central Loan Bank) 

 balancing supply and demand among the central banks, obtaining 

 necessary credit, and making necessary investments on the money 

 market, for them. 



Outside Prussia no State Central Co-operative Bank has been 

 established, but in all the larger States the central banks are in 

 receipt of State advances or credit to assist them when the monetary 

 demands of the local societies are in excess of the deposits of the latter 

 and of other available capital. 



Commercial Banks urge that the granting of loans for the long 

 periods required by agriculturists would not be advisable, as their 

 capital would be unduly tied up. Such banks naturally wish to 

 realise profits by the frequent turnover of their capital ; they often 

 operaie on small margins ; and the bulk of their customers, who are 

 traders and manufacturers, do not as a rule leave money for long 

 periods on deposit with them. Rural co-operative societies are not 

 profit-seeking speculative undertakings ; and German rural societies 

 have found that the capital on which they mainly depend, namely, 



