124 AGRICULTURAL CREDIT BANKS 



without the pressure of the advance received on them, 

 the non-native had to take the matter in hand. 



Indeed, the system of advancing money, which is 

 decidedly open to abuse as a means of extortion, although 

 this is not the rule, aims in the first place at the above 

 object rather than at putting out money at interest. The 

 credit banks, therefore, strongly co-operate in rendering 

 the people, whose requirements have increased with the 

 pressure of the times, economically free, a first condi- 

 tion to enable them to devote themselves undisturbed to 

 cultivation, to develop enterprise, and to compete in the 

 economic struggle. The native, in fact, begins more and 

 more to raise himself and to engage in trade, industry, 

 and agriculture on a large scale, in which the divisional 

 banks render assistance. The idea is also under consider- 

 ation of introducing a Bill of limited scope for the 

 prevention of usury, i.e., usury in the sense of extortion, 

 profiting by anyone's pecuniary embarrassment. 



Not all moneys, of course, lent by the banks have found 

 useful employment. On the one hand loans have often 

 been granted for measures which, being -of too wide a 

 scope, have in the long run proved, although well in- 

 tended, to have been lacking in usefulness; and, on the 

 other hand, the debtor has often misused the money 

 borrowed. Here and there, for instance, encouragement 

 has been given artificially to the breeding of cattle, the 

 cultivation of certain crops, and the redemption of 

 mortgaged lands, notwithstanding that the need thereof 

 was not actively felt by those interested. As a conse- 

 quence the debtor has undoubtedly often gone oack 

 instead of forward, but gradually, thanks to experience, a 

 more rational comprehension has prevailed, and the native 

 has learnt to take a better view of his social duties. 



In the Mohammedan world the interest prohibition of 

 the Koran restrains the strongly religious from feeling 

 the necessary sympathy for the popular banks, which, 

 however, does not prevent the great mass from paying 

 and receiving interest. Neither are the spiritual leaders 

 unanimously opposed to it now that it appears that the 

 interest paid serves to form a reserve fund for the banks, 

 and the depositors also run the risk, at all events in theory, 

 of participating in the losses. 



