EXAMPLES FROM OTHER LANDS 23 



The 15,000 banks are associated with and partly financed 

 by 36 central banks, the total turnover of which in 

 1909 was £245,689,000. The figure further includes 4,399 

 co-operative credit societies, affiliated to the Raiffeisen 

 Organisation. In the case of 4,154 of these societies 

 supplying data, we get the following details for the year 

 1909 : — Total membership, 432,000 ; total amount of 

 business done, £60,059,000 ; savings deposits, £8,855,000 ; 

 withdrawals, £6,290,000 ; loans granted during year, 

 £4,544,000 ; percentage of loans up to £50, 77*25. 



Organisations for collective purchase of agricultural 

 requisites, following on the need of the German farmer to 

 meet the combinations of manufacturers and dealers by 

 counter-combinations, has gone even further than the 

 figures in the above table would suggest, since two-thirds of 

 the mutual co-operative credit societies and many of the 

 co-operative dairy societies also purchase for their members. 

 Then the necessity further to counteract the influence of 

 powerful trusts and syndicates in Germany seeking to 

 control the market in fertilisers, feeding stuffs, machinery, 

 oil, coal and almost every other agricultural requisite led 

 the local societies to join together into federations. At first 

 the larger bodies thus formed purchased for the associated 

 societies on commission ; but, following on some changes in 

 the law brought about in 1889, central purchase federations, 

 having power to buy on their own account, and operating 

 under commercial experts, began to be formed. 



In 1895 there were in Germany 10 of these central co-opera- 

 tive purchase federations ; by 1900 the number had increased 

 to 20 ; by 1905 to 25 ; and by the end of 1909 to 27. The 

 real increase, however, has been in the number, not of 

 federations, but of " members," the latter consisting mainly 

 of affiliated societies. Thus the membership of the federa- 

 tions, which stood at 1,181 in 1892, rose to 2,785 in 1895, to 

 7,659 in 1902 and to 10,348 in 1909. The total for 1909 

 included 4,014 rural banks which bought agricultural 

 requisites for their members through the central purchase 

 federations in the same way as the co-operative societies 



