Miscellaneous. 



530 



December, 1910. 



need, and then buy the whole lot from a 

 wholesale firm, thus saving a good deal 

 of expense. 



In general, then, by the provision of 

 crops, and of transport facilities, and of 

 markets, the Government can do a great 

 deal towards the reduction of the 

 amount of capital needed by the villager 

 who is to progress in agriculture, and 

 can of course do the work required much 

 more efficiently than the latter. But 

 tbere will still remain the need for a 

 certain amount of money, and more 

 especially for so much as will get the 

 villager out of the hands of the local 

 moneylender. How this is to be best 

 done without tending to pauperise him 

 is then perhaps the greatest problem of 

 importance before the government of a 

 tropical dependency at the present time. 



If the Government try to lend the 

 money directly to the cultivators, not 

 only will machinery for repayment have 

 to be put into operation upon a fairly 

 extensive scale, but the result will tend 

 to be that the cultivators will get to 

 regard loans of money as their due, and 

 wondrous will be the excuses raked up 

 for non-repayment at the due date. 

 Direct loans by the government to the 

 cultivator would in fact seem to be 

 rather out of the question. 



The most successful system of advanc- 

 ing money to small growers so far dis- 

 covered would appear to be by means of 

 co-operative credit societies, such as 

 were first started in Wurtemberg by 

 Raiffeisen in the early years of the past 

 century, and which have spread till 

 there are now many thousands of them 

 throughout the world. Already many 

 of them are working in the tropics, more 

 especially in India. Several, of purely 

 amateur kind, are in operation in Ceylon. 



The essential features of a co-operative 

 credit society are that it is confined to 

 one village or district, that it has 

 unlimited liability, and that it lends only 

 within its own district. 



The typical society starts by collect- 

 ing funds from its members, each mem- 

 ber subscribing in equal amount. This 

 amount is then distributed in loans to 

 the cultivators, decided by a committee 

 of the society. Incidentally this has 

 worked for good in reducing the amount 

 of drinking, &c, for persons wanting 

 loans must show to the committee, 

 which is all composed of local men, who 

 know the circumstances of each appli- 

 cant, that there is every likelihood of 

 repayment at the proper date. Loans 

 are then made, and a small rate of 

 interest is charged on them. In India, 



for instance, this rate is 12£%, a rate 

 which may seem high to people living 

 in the north, but which is much lower 

 than that charged by the local money 

 lenders. From the interest and from 

 the continuing subscriptions of its 

 members, the society in the second year 

 will have more funds at its disposal, and 

 can extend the amount of its loans, and 

 so in the third year, till a point is 

 reached at which further 'loans are 

 undesirable. Any profit then made is 

 returned to the members in dividends. 



Granted then, that such societies are a 

 good means of freeing the cultivator 

 from the incubus of debt, the next 

 question is how they are to be worked. 

 It is obvious that such a society starting 

 in a tropical village would be like the 

 inhabitants of the famous island, who 

 eked out a precarious living by taking 

 in one another's washing. Outside 

 capital must be found for a start, and 

 to this extent, therefore, the name co- 

 operative applied to the society is a 

 misnomer. The great question is how is 

 this capital to be found -by the Govern- 

 ment or by private individuals. For 

 some years attempts have been made in 

 Ceylon to get such societies going with 

 funds supplied by private individuals, 

 but the latter have been accustomed to 

 get more interest by lending directly to 

 the cultivators, and in no case has it 

 been possible to get more than about 

 lis. 500 ($100) for a start, an amount 

 which is merely a drop in the bucket 

 compared to what is required. Even 

 with these small sums much good has 

 been done, however. 



It would appear that the only way 

 likely to be really successful in an 

 eastern country at any rate, and prob- 

 ably therefore in almost any tropical 

 country, is to start these societies under 

 the aegis of the Government, It is diffi- 

 cult to work out the best method of 

 doing this, but probably in essence what 

 should be done is for the Government to 

 find the necessary funds to start a 

 society, and then make the society 

 local— like a Raiffeisen society— with a 

 local committee to manage it, upon 

 which the local representative of the 

 Government should have a seat. Audit 

 of the societies' accounts should also 

 come under the work of the Government 

 audit office, but except to this extent 

 the Government should have no voice 

 in the management of the actual work 

 of the societies. 



Given a few years of such a society, 

 the cultivator should get entirely out of 

 the hands of the local moneylender, and 

 if nothing further were to be done, this 



