Co.operaties Banking. By Henry W. Wolff. (P. S. King and
Son. Is. 6d. net„)—Mr. Wolff has written various books and pamphlets in support of this principle, and on some of its practical applica- tions, agricultural banks, village banks, and the like. The system has not achieved in this country anything more than a micas d'estime. Elsewhere it has prospered, especially in Germany. Mr. Chamberlain, says our author, declared that if £100,000,000 could be added to the wages of the British working man, the Golden Age would come. He proposed torsi:se it by a tariff,:--by duties on foreign corn, among other things. "Co-operative banks," writes Mr. Wolff, "have required no tariff, no increased import duties, no raising of the price of corn, to produce that .2100,000,000. It is produced by the people's own efforts and thrift, and being so raised, it finds employment almost automatically, very near the source- from which it first sprung, in the most fructifying way." "The first step which a bank is bound -to take, from regard to its own safety, is to make the improvident thrifty, the reckless careful—in some applications even the drunkard sober, the evil liver well conducted, the unlettered capable of using the pen." This is pitched in too high a note, and may even rouse a prejudice. But Mr. Wolff certainly deserves a hearing. After all, the principle Is closely akin to that of the Savings Bank, with much closer application to industry.
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