Nov. 1906.] 



421 



Miscellaneous. 



general stock in a grain bank. Under such conditions the only method of running a 

 seed association is to purchase the variety of seed indented for by each member, and 

 to use the collection in the gola as food grain. The ryots readily use mixed grain 

 for food, but seed grain must be specially selected and true to variety. For the 

 following year a sufficient quantity of the stock must be sold and the next year's 

 seed grain purchased. The surplus stock must be sold as soon as the new year's 

 grain is harvested, for paddy deteriorates after one year. All these little transac- 

 tions mean a large amount of labour, and it is difficult to get rid of the custom 

 whereby every one who touches the grain gets a certain percentage. For these 

 reasons I have come to the conclusion that on the whole it is easier to found 

 successful money societies than seed banks ; the temptations are fewer and the 

 trouble of management is not so great. 



At present, however, one experiment on a large scale is being made. In the 

 Southal Parganas the Deputy Commissioner has carried on a grain-lending business 

 for some years for the benefit of the ryots of the Government Estate and the Wa rds 

 Estates under his charge. There are golas at four centres with a total capital of nearly 

 25,000 maunds of paddy. Loans were made to individual cultivators, but the business 

 soon assumed such proportions that it got beyond the management of the Deputy Com- 

 missioner without the assistance of a special staff. The defects of the system were the 

 difficulties of checking the accounts and the stock, the high cost of the management 

 owing to the payments made to headmen and others for collecting the debts ; and 

 lastly, the exactions at all times of weighment and check. In consequence the rate 

 charged was not smaller than the rate at which the ryot could borrow from the 

 village grain dealer. Under the new rules recently drawn up, loans will in future 

 not be made to individuals, but only to batches of ten on the joint and several 

 bond of the whole number. If any batch chooses, it may be registered as a co- 

 operative society. In such cases the loan will be treated as the capital 

 of the village bank and half the interest will be credited to the village ; in other 

 cases the full interest and capital must be paid annually direct into the central gola 

 Loans to societies are repayable in four equal annual instalments commencing 

 from the end of the third year. 



Success in all these experiments will not come at once. It is necessary to 

 be patient. Raiffesen started his first bank in 1849, a second in 1851, and it was 

 not till nearly forty years later that the movement made rapid strides. In Bengal 

 there are already over threescore societies working on sound principles, and this 

 tends to show that we are on the road to a successful solution of the problem of 

 financing agriculture.— By W. R. Gourlay, I.C.S., Registrar of Co-operative Credit 

 Societies, Bengal, in the Agr. Journal of India, July. 



55 



