WORKING CREDIT FOR FARMERS. 257 



and supplemented it very liberally by its own. Accordingly, 

 with Leon Say, we may say, looking at the brilHant picture 

 which ^Ir. Middleton has limned for us : La inutualite 

 (and specifically co-operative credit) a tout cree. 



However, those brilliant results have not been achieved 

 exclusively by Co-operative Credit practised in its original 

 purity, such as has been here described. In either of the 

 two shapes here spoken of it has been reshaped so as to 

 serve distinct by-ends — which are not altogether consistent 

 with genuine co-operative principle. However, so useful 

 a weapon, so serviceable as a means of enlisting popular 

 support, was not likely to be left to be used only for ideal 

 purposes. The adaptations made, favoured as they are 

 by principalities and powers, come before the public with 

 so much dazzling authoritative commendation and have 

 to such an extent captured the public ear, that it will be 

 well here to add a few words in explanation of them, were 

 it only to call attention to their weak points and to sound 

 a timely note of warning against their overready acceptance. 

 For being patronised — as a matter of what M. Luzzattihas 

 not inaptly styled " egotistic altruism" — by Governments 

 and other high authorities, they find themselves very well 

 advertised and eulogised. 



Economic conditions being in some respects more or less 

 the same all the world over, the particular obstacles which 

 we complain of at home have very accountably been 

 encountered in other countries as well. There is that 

 difficulty about the beginning. Those first funds required 

 are very slow in coming by pure self-help. In general 

 estimation they appear more reluctant still than they really 

 are — as we have recently seen in India. However, in the 

 earliest stages every trifling untoward incident is apt to 

 produce an awkward setback. And unquestionably on 

 new ground the first progress is laborious. A tree fit to 

 stand storms is slow in growing. 



Beyond this, specifically in the Raiffeisen societies, those 

 " ideal " objects, the creation of a sort of brotherhood, the 

 aim of making members better, more trustworthy, more 

 loyal, more God-fearing, as well as better-to-do, appear 



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