i2 4 AGRICULTURAL INDEBTEDNESS 



to be increasing at the rate of at least one or two per 

 diem. 



1 There have been no actual bankruptcies during the 

 whole course of operations ; in the early days some 

 societies were wound up, but no case of bankruptcy 

 has occurred. There are, of course, small losses in 

 some of the societies, but in all cases they are covered 

 by the reserve, and in no case has any general contri- 

 bution been required from the members under the 

 principle of solidarity. This, at least, is the repeated 

 assertion of RaifFeisen and his followers.' 



It would be easy to multiply glowing accounts of 

 the results achieved by the Raiffeisen societies. Two 

 extracts must suffice from Mr. H. W. Wolff's work 

 (1893), describing what he himself has seen. 



1 You should go into the valley of the Rhine, where 

 Raiffeisen banks have been longest at work, and observe 

 to what extent homes have been made habitable and 

 comfortable ; how culture has been improved ; how 

 machinery has been purchased, and the best manures 

 and feeding-stuffs ; how the vintner has been enabled 

 to sell his produce for cash at double the old rate of 

 return ; how the small peasant can now buy his im- 

 plements and manures of the best quality at the 

 cheapest wholesale prices, and yet — thanks to a large 

 reserve accumulated in his bank, raised up seemingly 

 out of nothing, as if by fairy hands — at six months' 

 credit. You should see how small industry and trade 

 have been developed ; how the usurer, once all-power- 

 ful, has been driven out of the field, and those once 

 poor men have become small capitalists. One is afraid 

 of falling into a strain of rhapsody in describing all 

 these results.' 

 The other example is not less instructive : 

 ' One very striking and characteristic instance comes 

 to me from the Grand Duchy of Saxe- Weimar. There, 

 in what not long ago was a forlorn district, something 

 like a rural Seven Dials, stands the forsaken village of 



