1917
Credit is the simplest form of co-operation and it was necessary to familiarise the people with the principles of coperation through the most simple form when they had lost all ideas of associated action chiefly owing to the failure of early English legislators to understand the economic and social structure of the country resulting in the substituting of a regime of economic individualism for [...] Before describing the origin and development of co-operation in India we would attempt to give here a brief survey of the growth of the co-operative movement in some of the chief countries of the world. [...] The essential features of the Raiffeisen rural bank.— Before describing the essential features of the Raiffeisen system we should have a full grasp of the meaning of personal credit which lies at the basis of the Raiffeisen system. [...] In a society with unlimited liability the members over and above the liability to pay in full the nominal value of the obligatory single share—for only one share may be taken by each member—undertake liability for the engagements of the society to its creditors directly to the extent of the whole of their property ; and this liability is individual and collective. [...] The committee and the board are in the first instance legally responsible to the society to the full extent of their property when losses occur as the result of their not exercising the prudence of ordinary business men" in the affairs of the society ; and finally there is the further safeguard of the audit which must be carried out at least oncwithin every two years.