Miscellaneous. 



370 



[April, 1909. 



and families to work without hope of 

 return on the plantations of St. Thome 

 and Principe. ... I am satisfied that 

 under the ' servical ' system as it exists 

 at present, thousands of black men and 

 women are against their will and often 

 under circumstances of great cruelty 

 taken away every year from their homes 

 and transported across the sea to work 

 on unhealthy islands from which they 

 never return. If this is not slavery, I 

 know of no word in the English language 

 which correctly characterises it." Mr. 

 Burtt's report is endorsed by Mr. 

 Claude Horton of the Children's 

 Hospital, Brighton, who accompanied 

 Mr. Burtt throughout the whole of 

 his inland journey. Such testimony 

 coming from a man whose instructions 

 were to arrive at the facts without 

 prejudice, may be accepted as a suffi- 

 cient proof of the general accuracy of 

 the charges made by Mr. Nevinson. So 

 far as is yet known the Portuguese 

 Government have taken no action, 

 although tiie report has been in their 

 hands for nearly a twelvemonth. What 

 action can be taken by the British firms 

 concerned in the trade it is not very easy 

 to say. Merely to discontinue buying 

 cocoa from these islands would have, 

 very little effect upon the cocoa planters, 

 unless the boycott were world wi de. 

 England is not the only consumer of 

 cocoa, and if the Portuguese planters 

 lose their market in England, they will 

 only extend their sales in France and 

 Switzerland. It is conceivable that all 

 the cocoa firms, Continental as well as 

 British, might enter into an arrangement 

 to boycott Portuguese cocoa, but the 

 difficulty of negotiating such a boycott 

 would be enormous, and it would be 

 almost certain to break down. About a 

 year ago, some of the Swiss manufac- 

 turers were invited to come into line 

 with the British firms, but they bluntly 

 refused. On the whole, the matter 

 seems to be one which must be dealt 

 with by the two Governments concerned. 

 Great Britain has so long led the world 

 in a crusade against slavery that her 

 motives could hardly be misunderstood 

 if she were now to put strong pressure 

 upon her Portuguese ally to stamp out 

 slavery in these Islands. After all, the 

 utmost that is asked of Portugual is to 

 see that the laws which she has made 

 are carried out.— Indian Agriculturist, 

 Vol. XXXIII., No. 12, December 1, 1908. 



CO-OPERATIVE CREDIT SOCIETIES. 



Proceedings op the Simla 

 Conference. 

 The third Conference of the Regis- 

 trars of Co-operative Cudit Societies sat 



at Simla on Monday, October 5th, and 

 the three following days, under the 

 presidency of Mr. Carlyle, Secretary to 

 the Government of India in the Reve- 

 nue and Agriculture Department. The 

 President, in his opening speech, dwelt 

 on the rapid progress of the movement 

 during the past year. The number of 

 co-operative banks of all kinds has 

 risen from 842 to 1,822, and the grand 

 total of their working capital, which 

 was mote than doubled in the year, 

 now amount to Rs. 44J lakhs. The in- 

 crease in the rural banks is very strik- 

 ing, There are now 1,201 against 740 

 last year, with a membership of 93,200 

 and a capital of Rs. 22h lakhs. This 

 great expansion, of course, brought 

 many problems in its train. In many 

 provinces the limit of personal super- 

 vision by the Registrar has already been 

 reached, and if the development is to 

 continue it is essential that the socie- 

 ties should get into touch with the out- 

 side money market. 



This question of finance and control 

 was, perhaps, the most important sub- 

 ject discussed by the Conference. One 

 non-official, who was present, suggested 

 that the problem might be solved by 

 the establishment of a large agricul- 

 tural bank, and he explained the out- 

 lines of a possible scheme to the 

 Conference. 



The Registrars, however, were gener- 

 ally agreed as to the importance of 

 attracting local capital, Where this 

 could not be done they thought that 

 the ideal development was the feder- 

 ation of individual societies into local 

 co-operative union on a joint-stock 

 basis. If these unions failed to attract 

 the necessary capita], the next step 

 should be to federate them into a 

 cential union, the union being a joint- 

 stock company registered under the 

 Co-operative Credit Societies Act. A 

 central bank on these lines has already 

 been started in the Budaun District 

 of the United Provinces. As regards 

 control it was thought that ultimately 

 supervision could be left to the finan- 

 cing agency, and that this was the 

 ideal to aim at, though a Registrar 

 would probably always be necessary. 



A suggestion that the difficulties al- 

 ready experienced in some provinces in 

 regard to the controlling staff might 

 be got ever by decentralisation from 

 the Registrars to District Officers was 

 unanimously objected to on the grounds 

 that the officialization of the movement 

 should be avoided, and that the true 

 line of* decentralization was from the 

 Registrars to the Societies themselves. 



