WORK DONE OR PROJECTED 223 



INCREASING NEED. 



Then, whatever the exact proportions of the need to-day, 

 the planting of more small holders on the soil will increase 

 that need still further, while the creation of small-holder 

 colonies should greatly facilitate the formation of credit 

 banks among groups of cultivators of the same social 

 standing. 



Nor is it the small holders alone whose wants require to be 

 considered. There are other growers, of the type of small 

 farmers, who stand in want of credit on a somewhat larger 

 scale, and for whom provision should no less be made, more 

 especially in view of the increasing difficulty they have 

 found of late years in dealing with the ordinary banks, 

 owing to the steady conversion of local private banks into 

 country branches of great Metropolitan banking concerns. 



Altogether, the actual need for greater credit and banking 

 facilities for agriculturists must be regarded as much less a 

 question of the day than the problem as to the best way in 

 which those facilities can be afforded. 



ATTITUDE OF JOINT STOCK BANKS. 



Further action by the Central Co-operative Agricultural 

 Bank has been in abeyance of late owing to (i) the limitations 

 of its available funds ; (2) the declared intention of the 

 Government to deal with the question of agricultural credit ; 

 and (3) the formulating by the Board of Agriculture of 

 certain plans which at one time made it seem possible that 

 a continuance of the operations of the Central Bank might 

 be less necessary. 



These plans referred especially to the prospect of the 

 Board being able to arrange with leading joint stock banks, 

 having branches in rural districts, for the financing of 

 agricultural co-operative credit societies. Certain of the 

 banks in question have expressed their willingness to allow 

 the managers of their country branches to help in the forma- 

 tion of credit societies among small holders and allotment 



