20 CO-OPEKATION IN DANISH AGEICULTURE 



and both Berlin and Delitzsch have monuments to " the apostle 

 of the middle-class movement." 



One of the most important rules of the Schulze-Delitzsch 

 societies is this, that loans are only granted for short periods, 

 usually for no more than three months. The interest, varying 

 according to the nature of the loan and the security, has 

 generally been fairly high. For these reasons the S.-D. 

 societies have been more suited to the need of the artisan 

 y classes in the towns and less so to that of the farmers, although 

 to some extent they have been used also by these. Much 

 more important for the agricultural classes have been the so- 

 called Raiffeisen societies. 



Friederich Wilhelm Raiffeisen (1818-1888) was originally 

 an officer, but on account of a malady which attacked his eyes, 

 he entered the civil service and held the post of chief magistrate 

 (Biirgermeister) in various towns in the Rhenish Province of 

 Prussia. The first of the Credit Banks founded by him is older 

 than the S.-D. banks. The harvest throughout a wide area in 

 Germany, including Rhenish Prussia, having proved a failure in 

 the year 1847, Raiffeisen, with the aid of some wealthy men, 

 founded a small society in Westerwald on the Rhine for the 

 purpose of buying seed corn, seed potatoes, and other necessaries 

 for the smallholders and peasants in the neighbourhood. In 1 848 

 he formed an aid society in Flammerfeld to help the poorer 

 farmers. But it was not till the year 1854, when forming a 

 society in Heddersdorff, that he hit upon the plan of his first 

 Credit Society. This was primarily intended to grant loans, 

 but had the further aim of helping orphans, the unemployed, 

 and discharged prisoners ; it also assisted farmers to buy 

 cattle, and had even other objects such as the erection of 

 public libraries and the like. After ten years' experience he 

 reahsed that it was impracticable for one society to have so 

 many different objects in view ; he therefore, in 1864, dissolved 

 the first society, and in its stead formed " the Heddersdorff 

 Loan Society " for the sole purpose of granting loans to de- 

 serving members of the society, and thereby save them from 

 procuring these on less advantageous terms from merchants 

 or on even more disastrous terms from money-lenders. The 

 following year Raiffeisen resigned his post as chief magistrate, 



