408 PROVISION OF BORROWING FACILITIES. 



where, but the state of affairs in the United Provinces and Madras 

 gave great promise for the future. The reports for 1908-09 served 

 to confirm the opinion expressed by the Government of India in their 

 Circular dealing with the proceedings of the third Conference that 

 the most satisfactory solution of the problems connected with the 

 best means of financing Cash Societies and with future arrangements 

 for audit, inspection and control would be found in the organisation 

 of societies as they increased in numbers into local Unions and in the 

 federation, at a later stage, if necessary, of these Unions into Central 

 Unions. At the same time it was of course possible that in some 

 provinces other solutions might be found necessary or desirable. The 

 great importance of supervision not being confined to Government 

 was well brought out by MR. RAMACHANDRA RAO'S remarks on the 

 danger of insufficient or routine inspection by Government officers, 

 and he thought that there was a real danger that if Government 

 assistance was not kept within moderate limits the whole move- 

 ment would tend to become departmentalised. He referred to the 

 fact that in many provinces Registrars had found it desirable to 

 confine work to concentrated areas and to avoid establishing isolated 

 societies. There could be no doubt as to the soundness of this policy. 

 It was far easier to establish in concentrated areas Unions which 

 could both finance, and, to some extent, supervise the societies in such 

 areas. Co-operation was, so to speak, in the air. New societies 

 were far more likely to be started and to be run on the right lines 

 from the beginning. He sympathised with the difficulties of the 

 Registrar of Burma who was unable to cope with the demands 

 of the public. He was not sure that the Registrar was not 

 over-anxious as to a number of societies being started without 

 being registered. If such societies sprang into existence it 

 would not be long before the fact that they were not registered 

 under the Act was widely known. A question of great importance 

 was how far societies should endeavour to pay off their members' 

 debts to outsiders. He could not believe that any one who was in 

 debt, both to the society and to the money-lender, could derive full 

 benefit from his society. Of course it was not necessary that the 1 debt 

 should be paid off in one instalment. As long as the society could 

 arrange for the debts of its members being definitely taken over, it did 

 not much matter if the debts were paid off by degrees. He shared 

 the doubts expressed by the registrar of Co-operative Credit Societies 



