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upset the scheme, because he wanted to train people to 

 business habits, to calculate what the money was worth and 

 would bring them, and getting money for nothing, or for lower 

 than the market rate, spoiled that effect. The third thing is 

 that you must use State aid simply as a means of teaching 

 people self-help and self-reliance. That is what the Indian 

 registrars have done to a wonderful extent. They are State 

 servants, but they are outside the political service, and they 

 try to keep the political business of the Government out of the 

 matter as much as possible. They impress upon the people 

 who are forming the banks: "You must learn to manage 

 things yourselves, to practise self-reliance and self-help." If 

 those three points are kept in view, I think co-operative 

 credit, which I hope will develop into co-operation in agri- 

 culture generally, may render considerable service in tropical 

 countries. I do not know the tropical countries myself, but 

 I have had correspondence with authorities in various parts of 

 the globe, and from what they have written to me I have very 

 great confidence that co-operative credit, whicn has proved 

 such a source of education, of health and well-being in Europe 

 and in India, will also have the same effects elsewhere under 

 the tropical sun. 



Mr. J. PEIRIS (Low-Country Products Association, Ceylon) : 

 Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen In the absence of Mr. Lyne, 

 the Director of Agriculture in Ceylon, who has shown much 

 interest in this movement for co-operative societies in the 

 island, and who would have been able to speak with authority 

 on the subject, I 'have been asked to say a few words regarding 

 our experience in connection with co-operative credit societies, 

 and drawing attention to some of the difficulties we have met 

 with. 



You must remember that in Ceylon, and in India generally, 

 agriculture was co-operative. That is to say, agriculture was 

 carried on in the village by the villagers under a system of 

 co-operation. But there was no money passing in those days, 

 or not much at any rate. The people who co-operated in 

 agriculture got their share in the produce. Well, that system 

 worked very well indeed, but with the introduction of Western 

 ideas it was broken up, and in place of it the system of dealing 

 in money arose, and this has led to a number of difficulties. 

 Mainly the difficulty has been that gradually the people, having 

 to rely on their own resources for cultivation, and sometimes 

 meeting with bad years, have fallen into debt, and got into the 

 hands of usurers. So the problem they had to face was that 

 they had to pay a very high interest on their loans, and gradu- 

 ally their lands passed into the hands of usurers. Well, I think 



