WORKING CREDIT FOR FARMERS. 251 



to me his disapproval of their principle. And quite apart 

 from that, their system is wholly inapplicable outside Prussia, 

 because nowhere else do the conditions exist upon which it 

 is reared up. The determining factor in them is the assess- 

 ment of each member to income tax. Income tax in Prussia 

 is levied down to incomes of £45 a year. And below that 

 point there are several grades of " assumed " income, on 

 which a tax, supposed to be proportionate, is levied. The 

 heads of the societies have free access to the income tax 

 register. And they rate their members in liability according 

 to such assessment. None of these means of appraisement 

 exist among ourselves. And we possess nothing that could 

 take their place. 



Under unlimited liability the system has worked very 

 successfully, and claims on the score of liability there have 

 been very few indeed, and those few have only been for 

 trivial amounts. The form of liability employed has in 

 truth proved effective without involving, asM. Louis Durand, 

 the Raiffeisen of France, has put it, " the slightest element 

 of danger." And the liability has been further fortified by 

 the protective measure of narrowing liability in application, 

 under which treatment not only has it lost all its terrors, 

 but from a danger it has been converted into a source of 

 security. 



What constitutes the danger inherent in unlimited lia- 

 bility, as we know it, is not its want of a limit, but the 

 severance of liability in the majority of cases from its employ- 

 ment, the entrustment of its employment to persons other 

 than those who are answerable for it. Thus in the ill-fated 

 City of Glasgow Bank the body of shareholders knew no- 

 thing whatever about the commitments entered into on 

 their behalf by the Board. In co-operative credit societies, 

 on the other hand, nothing of the sort occurs. Every fact 

 in the business of the society is accessible to every member 

 under that " maximum of publicity" the merits of which 

 Sir R. Morier extols. The only fact not made known to 

 members, and indeed kept scrupulously secret, is the amount 

 of deposits standing to each man's name. Everything else 

 is within the reach of every member's ken and is, in so 



