AGRICULTURAL CREDIT BANKS 97 



have kept their shares quite small and have clung to 

 unlimited liability. Where limited liability has been 

 adopted it bears a very different meaning from the term 

 as used in England. It is deliberately arranged that 

 shareholders shall only pay up a fraction, sometimes 

 but a small fraction, of the nominal value of their shares, 

 while their liability extends to the amount of such 

 nominal value. Some of the Raiffeisen banks which 

 followed the leadership of Herr Haas showed at one 

 time a very undesirable tendency to rely on State aid. 

 There is one feature of Raiffeisen banks on which their 

 founder laid the greatest stress, and which figures pro- 

 minently in the articles of the 4,000 banks included in the 

 Raiffeisen Federation. It is declared that " the society 

 rests upon a Christian and patriotic foundation," and 

 among its objects is "the organization of means for the 

 promotion of rural social welfare and love of home." 

 It is this feature of Raiffeisenism which has specially 

 appealed to the clergy, and one result has been the 

 organization of a large number of successful rural banks 

 in Italy which are really branches of the Roman Church 

 organization, and whose members must be professed 

 Catholics. Raiffeisen societies are run by popularly 

 elected committees of management and boards of super- 

 vision. The function of the latter is to scrutinize the 

 executive work of the former and prevent imprudence or 

 abuse. A further check has been provided by the group- 

 ing of the rural banks in unions, with power to inspect 

 and audit the accounts of all affiliated co-operative 

 agricultural societies. For the purpose of financing rural 

 banks central banks have been formed, the shares in 

 which are held by agricultural co-operative societies. 

 German rural banks as a whole have succeeded in attract- 

 ing sufficient deposits to supply their wants in the way of 

 loanable capital. One rural bank receives more *han it 

 requires and another less. The former could lend direct 

 to the latter, but it is far more convenient for both parties 

 that its surplus should be deposited in a central bank, 

 and thence distributed to the bank whose loans exceed its 

 deposits. 



There is no time to speak of rural banks in other 

 7 



