46 



GENERAL AGRICULTURAL NOTES. 



[June 1896. 



The administration of the General Savings and Annuity 

 Bank has published a manual on agricultural co-operative 

 credit societies, containing provisions regulating the relations 

 between them and the General Bank, and indicating generally 

 the lines upon which these institutions should be organised. 

 The most important are the rural banks working on the 

 Raiffeisen system ; various local banks group themselves into 

 a central co-operative society with limited liability, whose special 

 function is to act as intermediary between the affiliated local 

 associations and the General Savings Bank. The latter opens 

 credits with the local banks only upon the surety of the central 

 society, to which they must be affiliated, and which undertakes 

 the supervision of their operations and deals with any matters 

 of interest to them all. The guarantee fund of the central bank 

 is divided into two portions. The first is paid in cash each 

 year by the rural bank ; it amounts to about J per cent, of the 

 total of the loans agreed to by the bank. The second portion is 

 payable on account and is conditional. The central bank leaves 

 this second portion at the disposal of the local bank so long as 

 the latter continues working ; in case of its liquidation, of im- 

 portant alterations in its statutes, or of its dissociation from the 

 central bank, this sum devolves to the latter, which can only 

 utilise it in defraying expenses incurred in the creation of new 

 banks. 



Any co-operative society of agricultural credit can open a 

 current account with the tax-collector (acting for the General 

 Savings Bank) of the district in which the headquarters of the 

 association are situated ; the interest allowed on these deposits, 

 whatever be their amount, is fixed at 3 per cent. The association, 

 on making its first deposit, will receive within eight days, through 

 the tax-collector, a current account book in which all the opera- 

 tions are to be entered. If it requires a loan from the General 

 Savings Bank, application must be made, through the central 

 society, to the director, and sums, not exceeding the total amount 

 which the General Savings Bank is prepared to advance, will 

 be paid to the local association through the intermediary of the 

 tax-collector. The interest on these loans is 3 \ per cent, per 

 annum. The association is at liberty to pay back the advances, 

 in whole or in part, and fresh loans can be obtained, so long as the 

 total amount granted by the General Bank remains unexhausted. 



The formalities are thus reduced to a minimum, all that is 

 necessary is to demand from the General Savings Bank — • 

 through the central bank — a credit account, and the tax collector 

 will be at once empowered to open a current account with 

 the local bank, which can then obtain loans at the rate of 3J 

 per cent., and make deposits up to any amount at 3 per cent. 

 This last point is an important concession to the rural credit 

 associations, similar to that already granted to recognised mutual 

 societies, for, under ordinary circumstances, the savings bank 

 pays only 2 per cent, on deposits above 120£. 



As already noticed, the General Savings Bank grants advances 

 only upon the guarantee of a central bank to which the local 



