Page:Indian Journal of Economics Volume 2.djvu/504

B. EWBANK trust of any -fresh members, and great loans or in any caution in granting way depleting their cash reserves, will, it may be hoped, carry them safely through the crisis. But their position is not as solid as it should be in the fsoo of a serious eelamity. This type of society is probably st present the Achilles' heel of the movement. The argument concludes to this test as an agency for famine. relief co-operative likely to prove very effective and are to find it as much can do as they actual societies are not indeed likely to tide them- selves over the famine without bankruptcy. But to admit this is not of course to deny their great value as protective agencies against famine. Firefly these societies are organised and fairly efficient local bodies, ivhieh are capable of being used as part of the machinery of famine relief. In (]ermany co-operative institutions played for the first three years of war a very considerable part in the state organfaction for rationing and distributing food supplies. In India they are less numerous and less highly developed, and their business capacity i wouid probably be overtaxed if they were entrusted. with any very oomplioa? functions. During the coming famine, food-grains, fodder, cloth and kerosine are likely to remain under o t?oisl control. With 'regard to food-stuffs, societies e&n do little, because under the existing arrangements wholesale supplies of Burmah rice or Punjab wheat must be paid for in cash; and very fev? societies have got the necessary funds at their command. The control of fodder is' au excessively difitoul? questio n owing both ?o its scarcity and its bulk, and no proposal to uss societies for its distribution has been mooted. Arrangements have been made for distributing stmndard cloth through co-operative societies; but