an enthusiast's exaggeration. Mark his peroration: "Credit, which
is only Trust and Faith, is becoming more and more the money power of
the world, and in the parchment bullet into which is impressed the faith
which removes mountains, India will find victory and peace." Here there
is evident confusion of thought. The credit which is becoming the money
power of the world has little moral basis and is not a synonym for
Trust or Faith, which are purely moral qualities. After twenty years'
experience of hundreds of men, who had dealings with banks in South
Africa, the opinion I had so often heard expressed has become firmly
rooted in me, that the greater the rascal the greater the credit he
enjoys with his banks. The banks do not pry into his moral character:
they are satisfied that he meets his overdrafts and promissory notes
punctually. The credit system has encircled this beautiful globe of ours
like a serpent's coil, and if we do not mind, it bids fair to crush us
out of breath. I have witnessed the ruin of many a home through the
system, and it has made no difference whether the credit was labelled
co-operative or otherwise. The deadly coil has made possible the
devastating spectacle in Europe, which we are helplessly looking on. It
was perhaps never so true as it is today that, as in law so in war, the
longest purse finally wins. I have ventured to give prominence to the
current belief about credit system in order to emphasise the point that
the co-operative movement will be a blessing to India only to the extent
that it is a moral movement strictly directed by men fired with
religious fervour. It follows, therefore, that co-operation should be
confined to men wishing to be morally right, but failing to do so,
because of grinding poverty or of the grip of the Mahajan. Facility for
obtaining loans at fair rates will not make immoral men moral. But the
wisdom of the Estate or philanthropists demands that they should help on
the onward path, men struggling to be good.

Too often do we believe that material prosperity means moral growth. It
is necessary that a movement which is fraught with so much good to India
should not degenerate into one for merely advancing cheap loans. I was
therefore delighted to read the recommendation in the Report of the
Committee on Co-operation in India, that "they wish clearly to express
their opinion that it is to true co-operation alone, that is, to a
co-operation which recognises the moral