PROVISION OF BORROWING FACILITIES. 



not only control the internal affairs of the Central Bank, but will 

 consider the applications of rural societies for loans and decide to what 

 extent individual societies are bankable. The Central Bank is not only 

 to be the source whence rural societies are to derive their capital, but 

 a means of ganging the worth of newly formed societies. It may be 

 argued that too much power will be left in the hands of the Central 

 Bank, that as ' interest speaks all sorts of tongues and plays all sorts 

 of parts, even the part of the disinterested ' the central committee will 

 be able to starve the rural societies and thus kill the movement. 

 To this no present answer can be given. The question is 

 one of confidence, and time alone can prove whether that con- 

 fidence has been misplaced or not". That was more than six years 

 ago ; and the men I was then writing about were the present Directors 

 of our Central Banks who have proved so well that confidence in them 

 was not misplaced. In 1907 I had only just started the Sihora 

 Central Bank and had formed a few rural societies of the Raiffeisen 

 type. In the Central Provinces and Berar there were, altogether C>3 

 rural societies with a capital of Rs 31,061 and 2,154 members, and 

 4 urban societies with a capital of Rs 28,509 and GC7 members. We 

 have marched some distance since 1907, and there were on the 30th June, 

 1913 in the Provinces, the Provincial Bank, 25 Central Banks, (with 

 their own Union), 1,360 rural societies, 40 industrial societies and 22 



> 



other societies with a total membership of 27,292 and a working capi- 

 tal of Rs 34,37,705. Results such as these could not possibly have 

 been obtained but for (i) the initiative of Government and the help of 

 its officers, (ii) the enormous amount of time and trouble freely given to 

 the movement by our unofficial workers, and (iii) the fact that co-opera- 

 tive credit was welcomed by the people and supplied a pressing need. 

 Behind the figures are very substantial facts produced by careful educa- 

 tion in co-operation. There is not a man who has done work for the 

 cause without broadening his mind and his sympathies while acquiring 

 much fresh knowledge. Most of our Directors knew but little of 

 modern banking, and nothing of its distant cousin "co-operative >' 

 banking ; and, if I may be pardoned for saying so, many of them, 

 before they became co-operators, were surprisingly ignorant of Indian 

 village life. But active co-operative work takes men out and about, 

 mentally as well as physically. It rouses the spirit of action and of 

 enquiry, and, because men cannot be careless or dilatory in money 

 matters without causing disturbances which it is impossible to conceal. 



