AGRICULTURAL CREDIT BANKS 119 



years 1901 and 1902. In the first place, therefore, dessa 

 loemboengs and divisional banks were established in 

 Java on a large scale, followed later on, when the distress 

 had been met, by the establishment at a slower rate of 

 small banks in and outside Java. The Government also 

 made direct grants in the above-named years of money 

 and padi stocks on a large scale where most required, 

 but this system could not be permanently adopted, as it 

 encouraged carelessness, and did not offer sufficient 

 guarantee that the funds were efficiently and honestly 

 applied; no permanent improvement could be effected in 

 this way. The degree of popular development and the 

 sense of social responsibility were not and are not even 

 now sufficient to permit of the establishment of purely 

 co-operative credit banks otherwise than with the greatest 

 caution and by taking steps towards the introduction of 

 co-operative principles in the existing banks. Indeed, in 

 every part of the world the utmost care is necessary in 

 establishing the co-operative movement on a firm basis. 

 In the life of the natives primitive forms of association 

 are not uncommon (see above), a fact which, as regards 

 small farmers, is scarcely surprising. In money matters, 

 however, there is little or no mutual confidence, all the 

 less on account of the feudal power of the head of the 

 family, hamlet, or village, keeping the voice of the 

 ordinary man in the background. 



Only the more emancipated, the officials, and privately 

 employed persons possess sufficient elements for the 

 establishment and maintenance of mutual help societies, 

 which, however, confine themselves chiefly to purpose* 

 of consumption or provision at death. As far as the 

 mutual help and savings banks of native officials in Java 

 are concerned (prijaji banks), the majority of these have 

 failed through mismanagement or have been amalgamated 

 with the divisional bank. Only two are still in existence. 

 In the Government of the West Coast of Sumatra such 

 banks are known under the name of " bankangkoe." 



Of late years, however, with the rise of the third 

 estate, a tendency has been more and more noticeable 

 amongst the people of forming a common fund with the 

 object of trading for profit and for the accommodation 



