May, 1912.] 



439 Agricultural Finance <fe Co-operation. 



remaining 31 societies, they had at the 

 end of the year 663 members — an average 

 of 21 per society. They had during the 

 year advanced 119 loans to their mem- 

 bers, so that less than one in five of the 

 members took out a loan during the year. 

 The loans aggregated £1,390 and aver- 

 aged £12 per loan ; in individual cases 

 they varied from £3 to £40. The earn- 

 ings of these 31 societies during the year 

 amounted to £147 (including a gift of 

 £50), and the charges of the year were 

 £82, so that there was a net profit on the 

 year's working of £15, besides the gift. 

 Their expenses of management, which 

 are included in the above charges, 

 amounted to £34, or a little over £1 per 

 society. Their total assets amounted to 

 £1,924, of which £1,421 were out on loans 

 to members, and their total liabilities 

 to £1,654, of which £489 were due to 

 banks and £1,088 to depositors ; and the 

 total profits to date of all the 31 societies 

 put together amounted to £270. This 

 total includes gifts aggregating £115, so 

 that the profits actually earned to date 

 were £155, an average of £5 per society. 



It takes some years for a credit society 

 to get into working order, and the pro- 

 gress made can be better judged by 

 taking separately the totals for the six 

 oldest societies, which have been at work 

 for over fifteen years. Between them 

 they had last year 145 members (an 

 average of 24 per society), and during 

 the year they gave out 34 loans, so that 

 about one in four of the members got a 

 loan. The loans aggregated £511, and 

 averaged £15 per loan. The rate of 

 interest charged on loans to members 

 was, in four societies, 5 per cent., in one 

 6 per cent., and in one only 4 per cent. 

 They had secured deposits amounting to 

 £481, paying interest on them at 3 per 

 cent, in four societies, and at 4 per cent, 

 in one. Two of them had obtained 

 advances from banks at 4 per cent., and 

 one at 3 per cent. During the year they 

 earned £36 in interest, and received 

 other income amounting to £1, while 

 their interest charge was only £20, and 

 their expenses of management £6, an 

 average of £1 per society ; so that the 

 net profit of the year was £11, or nearly 



£2 per society. Their assets amounted 

 altogether to £743, including gifts of 

 £65, and £556 out on loans to members ; 

 and their liabilities were £538, inclu- 

 ding the £481 held on deposit. Their 

 surplus of assets over liabilities amoun- 

 ted to £205 (including the £65 recei- 

 ved as gifts), so that they have now, 

 after fourteen years of careful manage- 

 ment, built up a reserve fund equal 

 to more than one-third of what their 

 members require in loans during the 

 year. This is their own property, on 

 which they have no interest to pay. 

 The loans have been repaid punctually, 

 and the societies have made no bad 

 debts and incurred no losses, and only 

 in three or four cases have they had 

 to call on the sureties to help in re- 

 paying loans due from members. In 

 hardly any case has the surety ulti- 

 mately failed to recover the money from 

 the actual borrower. 



The loans were all taken out for pur- 

 poses likely, in the opinion of the com- 

 mittee, to prove profitable, such as the 

 purchase of sheep, pigs, cattle, horses, 

 carts, implements, seed, manure, or 

 cattle feed, or the employment of extra 

 labour on the borrower's holding. The 

 loans are generally made repayable 

 about the time when the borrower may 

 expect to reap the return on his ex- 

 penditure, and the date for repayment 

 is, therefore, generally from six to twenty 

 months after the date of the loan ; 

 some loans, however, were granted for 

 two years, repayable by six-monthly or 

 annual instalments. 



The members agree in saying that 

 they have derived great benefits from 

 the existence of these societies, which 

 have enabled many of them to obtain 

 the small loans needed for their agri- 

 cultural operations at a lower rate of 

 interest than they would have had to 

 pay elsewhere, and some of them to 

 obtain loans who could not otherwise 

 have borrowed at all. They cite in- 

 stances of men who were enabled, by 

 a loan from the society, to buy and feed 

 sheep, pigs or cattle, to hold over stock 

 for better prices, to procure seed, plants 

 or manure, to work their land to better 



