WORK DONE OR PROJECTED 217 



on receipt, and thus compete with the higglers and others who 

 pay cash down. 



6. Purchase of pedigree animals for the improvement of 

 members' live stock. 



If such a programme as this could have been fully carried 

 out, the powers of usefulness of the Central Bank would have 

 been greatly increased, and a very considerable impetus given 

 to the movement generally by the inclusion therein of a much 

 wider range of agricultural interests than could otherwise 

 be embraced. 



It was felt, however, that the Central Bank would require 

 to have a credit of at least 25,000, and the hope was enter- 

 tained that the Treasury would be willing to help by giving it 

 a guarantee to that amount. 



DIFFICULTIES AND HINDRANCES. 



Apart from these questions of finance, there were 

 hindrances in other directions to the rapid advance of the 

 co-operative credit movement. 



Social and economic conditions among the agricultural 

 classes in England and Wales are somewhat different from 

 those of the corresponding classes in most of the countries 

 where Raiffeisen banks have developed into a great institu- 

 tion. 



Those banks have their best chance of success in countries 

 or in localities where the people are all, or mainly, on an 

 approximately equal footing ; but in England there is a 

 much greater variety in the social standing of agriculturists 

 in general than is the case in the other countries in question, 

 while in England, also, the average small farmer would be as 

 little disposed to join with the agricultural labourer in the 

 unlimited liability of a Raiffeisen bank as the large farmer, 

 in turn, would be to join in with the small farmer. Raiffeisen 

 banks in England are thus most likely to succeed when they 

 can be established among colonies of small holders on a 

 footing of social equality with one another, and having wants 

 in common which call for collective action, though it must 



