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AGRICULTURAL BANKS IN BAVARIA. 



[Sept. 1895. 



this way they afford better accommodation to the needs of 

 agriculture. 



Comparing the merits of the two systems, Mr. Wolff * says : 

 " Both have grown up amid essentially different surroundings, 

 in different spheres of action, with different tasks. The Raiffeisen 

 Banks are, in the late Felice Mangili's words, an anomaly, but 

 an anomaly which is justified by its circumstances and its results. 

 Schulze worked in a town, among townsmen, and for the benefit 

 of townsmen, not of the poorest class. His banks could not 

 benefit the very poor. And as little could they benefit agricultural 

 cultivators, for whose requirements long credit is absolutely 

 indispensable — as everybody writing on the subject, including 

 Schulze-Delitzsch himself, has acknowledged. Herr Raiffeisen's 

 specific object was to benefit both the classes left out in the 

 cold, and to benefit them in the most effective way. So he came 

 to the conclusion that he must exact nothing from members 

 joining, and that he must make long credit the rule. Calling 

 upon a poor man, who deliberately joined in order to borrow, to 

 pay down money, would to his mind have amounted to sheer 

 mockery. His very reasonable principle was this : to make a 

 loan at all serviceable to a poor or embarrassed man, it must be 

 made to repay itself ; to tax other resources for repayment 

 would be, not to help, but to cripple the borrower. He might 

 want the money for buying manure, or seed, or feeding stuffs, 

 In that case he could scarcely be expected to repay it before a 

 twelvemonth. He might want it to improve his herd of live 

 stock, or to build a barn, or sink a well, or else drain a field. 

 In such cases he must be given credit for two years, for five, or 

 ten, or even more." 



The rate of interest on loans demanded by the Schulze- 

 Delitzsch banks is generally higher than that required by the 

 Raiffeisen associations. Some of the credit banks undertake 

 financial business on commission, and many of them have 

 taken up other branches of trade for the benefit of their 

 members, such as the supply of seeds, manures, fodder, and fuel. 



* People's Banks : H. W. Wolff. Longmans, Green & Co. 



