ECONOMIC SOLUTIONS 119 



would undergo amendment during the session author- 

 izing banks to make loans on the products of the farm, 

 oven including live stock. There are hints that oppo- 

 sition has arisen and that the bill will be withdrawn. 

 Such an outcome would constitute a call to our farmers 

 to form co-operative banking associations. There may 

 be other reasons for such action. Our banking system 

 is highly centralized. There are but five and twenty 

 bank- ii. Canada. T - u bank managers control 



the avtiii:il)le li .id ,av hgs of the Dominion. It might 

 prove in the iuferent ol national well-being that another 

 system of banking should arise to offset such centraliza- 

 tion. 



Germany has a highly effective form of rural co- 

 operative banking. In 1847 F. Raiffeisen, Burgo- 

 master of Flammersfeld, finding that the farmers of his 

 district could borrow only at usurious rates, formed co- 

 operative unions of the better-off citizens to loan to the 

 poorer. No profit was sought. The principle was dis- 

 interested love. After fifteen years, Raiffeisen con- 

 fessed failure; unions based on this principle had no 

 vitality. He then formed co-operative loan banks. 

 Farmers in a defined district syndicate their farm lands 

 under negotiable bonds which are offered jointly as 

 security for the credit the society needs. The indi- 

 vidual farmer then borrows from this society. The 

 Central Co-operative Bank of Prussia co-ordinates the 

 societies. The source-book for information upon their 

 working is Volume I., Monographs on Agricultural 

 Co-operation, the International Institute of Agricul- 

 ture, Rome. There are over 16,000 of the co-operative 

 societies, united in fifty-two federations, all united in 

 the Central Co-operative Bank. Their loans to farmers 

 in 1910 amounted to $3,800,000,000. The average 



