IO8 AGRICULTURAL CREDIT BANKS 



whereby they can be secured is a thing on which State 

 money and the time of Government officials may very 

 properly be expended. 



I have in the main left you to infer from figures the 

 economic benefits which co-operative credit societies have 

 diffused. People do not make use of village banks to 

 the extent they do in Germany or India, unless they meet 

 a very real and very pressing need. And I have been 

 silent regarding the moral benefits to which Raiffeisen 

 attached equal importance. But, in conclusion, I may make 

 one quotation from a Servian report, translated by Mr. 

 Wolff, on p. 483 of his book on "People's Banks." 

 " Peasants who used to spend their days in the public- 

 house playing cards and boozing have thrown off that 

 habit. . . . On one occasion a member of a village 

 bank was seen playing cards and losing 4 francs. He 

 was brought before the Committee and summarily ex- 

 pelled. Other members who were suspected of indulging 

 in play took warning, and are now rarely to be seen in 

 the public-house. . . . The annual report of the 

 village bank of Azagna says : ' Our Association has 

 taught us to respect one another and to help one another, 

 to enable each to live better and to work better. In a 

 little time it has made us learn many useful things which 

 our schools have failed to teach us.' ' 

 si sic omnes ! 



