Page:Indian Journal of Economics Volume 2.djvu/503

O0.OPI?RA TIV? MOVE ?fENT 485 kitchen instead of lingering on to be a dead weight on his fellow-members. Such sternness amongst neigh- bors is difficult to achieve; but for co-operative societies it may be the condition of their survival. It remains to consider the repercussion of famine and are usually fixed for short terms only. As s rule they have s certain amount of fluid resource st their comm. and; but a continuous run of depositors would soon exhaust these reserves. Owing to their limited liability, lack of real property, and less compact form? central banks will not finance these societies except to a minute extent (at present 2t per their total capital). cent of They are therefore very much exposed to risk from adverse conditions. The public credit of their managing committees, the mutual among non-agricultural societies. These societies number 215 with a membership of 50,796 and a working capital of 48]? lakhs. They are organized on a limited liability basis and carry on their loan business among the middle and lower urban classes. Salaries are always slow to adjust themselves to any rise in prices; and it is likely that the middle class members of these societies will find that their margin of in- come out of which they expected to repay insraiments to their societies has shrunk. The labor market is likely to be glutted and the wages of labor to remain at the level of bare subsistence. The present shortage of rolling stock, while keeping down the prices of agricultural produce .in villages, will tend to enhance them in the big towns. It may be inferred therefore that repayments of loans are likely to fall gravely into arrears, and that heavy withdrawals ,of deposits are probable. The situation of these societies is entirely different from that of agricultural societies, because no less than 64 per cent of their capital is derived from deposits, which are not necessarily local