AGRICULTURAL CREDIT BANKS IO/ 



tration of business, and he can at any time cancel the 

 registration of a society. Arrangements have been 

 made, and no doubt will in future be made, for a more 

 sympathetic kind of inspection than that of an auditor. 

 There were, some time ago, six societies in St. Vincent 

 with 123 members, all probably small farmers. There is 

 some difficulty in securing the rejection of unworthy 

 candidates for membership, and for some time this will 

 require careful watching. The Government lent the six 

 societies 294 at 6 per cent., but I believe the adminis- 

 trator has been able to arrange with a joint stock bank 

 which will get rid of State subventions, a very temporary 

 expedient. British Guiana and Trinidad, where the field 

 of action may ultimately be vastly larger, is moving in 

 the same direction. The British Guiana Committee, 

 which reported in January, 1911, rejected unlimited 

 liability, contemplated small local banks, not exclusively 

 agricultural, taking advances from Government at 4 per 

 cent., and making loans to their own members at 12 per 

 cent. Four per cent, seems much too low a rate for the 

 State to charge, and financial aid from Government 

 should only be looked on as a temporary expedient. How 

 long it is likely to be required a person unacquainted with 

 local conditions cannot judge. I believe this report has 

 recently been discussed in the local Legislature, but I have 

 not seen -a report of the proceedings. Jamaica has a 

 number of rural societies financed by the State, and not 

 of the pure Raiffeisen type. 



While the State should limit its financial assistance, 

 both in respect of time and amount, as far as possible, I 

 suppose that it will have to assume at least as much share 

 in the direction and control of the movement as we have 

 found necessary in India. There is one point in this 

 connection which is not really unimportant, and that is 

 the avoidance of requiring needlessly elaborate accounts 

 and returns. I look with dismay at the lengthy annual 

 statement required in England from every little village 

 bank, with its petty receipts and disbursements. A hard- 

 worked, half-educated, and unpaid secretary sometimes 

 gives up the task in despair. Educational work intended 

 to teach the benefits of co-operation and the means 



