ter to themselves and a menace to the west. Is it o much to hope for that we shall, when this time mes, be able as brethren together to lay down faraching principles for the future of mankind such will insure us for ever against a repetition of this gantic folly? If this is to be accomplished it will ed the united and persistent pressure of all who lieve in such a future for mankind. There will ill be multitudes who can see no good in the culture other nations, and who are unable to believe in any nuine brotherhood among those of different races. time of peace all the nations have been preparing r war. In the time of war let all men of goodwill epare for peace. The great friendly democracies in ch country must be ready to make their influence t. Now is the time to speak of this thing, to work rit, to pray for it.

"Asking God to bless slaughter."

The Tribune of Chicago points out that ree "pietistic Emperors' of Europe expect at God will work for them, and they have shorted their subjects to call upon Him or aid. It observes: "Before establising hell pon earth the pietistic kings commend heir subjects to God;" but what they eally do is to "seek the Lord's sanction for ne devil's work." Their real words transted into the inevitable facts that they nply are here vividly imagined:

"And now I commend you to God," said the aiser from his balcony to the people in the street. Go to church and kneel before God and pray for 3 help for our gallant army."

"Pray that a farmer dragged from a Saxon field all be speedier with a bayonet thrust than a wineaker taken from his vines in the Aube; that a Berlin wyer shall be steadier with the rifle than a Moscow erchant; that a machine gun manned by Heidelberg udents shall not jam and that one worked by aris carpenters shall.

"Pray that a Bavarian hop-grower, armed in a arrel in which he has no heart, shall outmarch a heat-grower from Poltava; that Cossacks from e Don shall be lured into barbed-wire entangleents and caught by masked guns; that an innkeeper Salzburg shall blow the head off a baker from le Loire.

"Go to church and pray for help'-that the hell all be hotter in innocent Ardennes than it is in Jually innocent Hessen; that it shall be hotter in nocent Kovno than in equally innocent Posen."

And the pietistic Czar commends his subjects > God that they may have strength of arm in a uarrel they do not understand; that they may inflict tore sufferings than they are required to endure nd the name of Romanoff be greater than the name f Hohenzollern, that it may be greater than the ame of Hapsburg, that its territories shall be rider and the territories of Hohenzollern and the erritories of Hapsburg less.

The pietistic Emperor of Austria commends his bjects to God, to seek divine assitance to crush the easants of Servia, dragged from the wheat-field when it was ready for the scythe and given to the ythe themselves.

A probable consequence of the war. "The human mind cannot yet begin to grasp the consequences" of the present war, says the New York Evening Post.

"The human mind cannot yet begin to grasp the consequences. One of them, however, seems plainly written in the book of the future. It is that, after this most awful and most wicked of all wars is over, the power of life and death over millions of men, the right to decree the ruin of industry and commerce aud finance, with untold human misery stalking through the land like a plague, will be taken away from three men. No safe prediction of actual results. of battle can be made. Dynasties may crumble before all is done; empires change their form of government. But whatever happens, Europe-humanity-will not settle back again into a position enabling three Emperors-one of them senile, another subject to melancholia, and the third often showing signs of disturbed mental balance...to give, on their individual choice or whim, the signal for destruction and massacre.

The Expenses of the War.

The Indian Daily News has pieced together the following facts and figures about the expenses of the war:

(a German calculation) that is 2 million a day (3

The war is costing Germany 12s. 6d. per head

Who can

crores) and a million for the navy and that makes 3 millions; in fact Germany is living at the rate of 11,000 million a year. We are spending about 12 millions a day, France 2 millions or more. Austria two, Russia say three, so says the "Nation." These are moderate estimates. The Balkan wars worked out 7 millions a day for 34 weeks. These wars were done on borrowed money. The Boer war was waged mainly on money borrowed from France. To-day there is no one with any money to lend. The net result is that money being unavailable (after a bit) taxes will go up to 12 times the normal. stand the strain longest? The war has lasted about 50 days at present and Germany has spent 150 millions; she confiscated all her peoples' savings, 1,500 millions, to do this but they were not fortunately for us in cash. The idea of belligerents paying for a war out of their own pocket has never occurred to strategists, who have an axiom that no European power can conduct a war without foreign loans. However, in fact if there is lots of paper and printing ink "money" is plentiful. After a bit, however, it requires a man with a bayonet to get anyone to take it, if people have not confidence in their rulers. In Germany the man with the bayonet will begin soon.

Russian Despotism in Finland.

Sometime ago Reuter sent a cablegram from Helsingfors, the capital of Finland, that as a sequel to the triumphal return of the famous runner Kolehmainen from America, the Russian Government has decreed that Finland shall not be allowed to participate in the Olympic Games in her own name. The Finnish Olympic Committee will probably be dissolved.

This is only the latest of Russia's efforts to put an end to the existence of Finlandas a distinct national entity. The Grand Duchy of Finland was ceded to Russia in

1809. The Czar has been the Grand Duke since the treaty of Fredrikshavn, in 1809. By various decrees from 1899 to 1903 the powers of local self-government which Finland possessed under its old constitution were taken away. In 1905 the Czar restored the independence of the Finnish army, re-established the irremovability of the judges, and granted the demand of the people of the restoration of its legislative independence. A Diet or National Assembly was established, and the responsibility of the secretary of state to the Diet was admitted. In 1908, however, the Czar gave his sanction to a protocol of the Russian Council of Ministers which gave that body wide powers of control over Finnish legislation, and which was drawn up without the co-operation of the Finnish authorities. Embittered controversies followed, the Imperial Government demanding that Bills affecting Imperial interests should be submitted to the joint preliminary examination of the secretary of state for Finland and the Council of Ministers. An Imperial Rescript, issued in October 1909, decreed that legislation concerning military service in Finland should be withdrawn from the competence of the Finnish Diet and transferred to that of the Imperial Legislature. In the meantime Finland was to pay to the Imperial Exchequer an annual contribution of £400,000, which by a Bill passed in 1911 was increased to double that amount.

In 1910 an Act was passed by the Russian Duma still further reducing the constitutional rights of Finland. By this measure the Russian Parliament is authorised to assess Finland's share in Imperial expenditure and to impose taxes for raising the money; to determine the rights of Russian subjects in Finland; to "constitute, in the interests of the Empire, exceptions to the Finnish criminal law and law of procedure," to legislate on popular education, on the right of holding public meetings and of forming associations, on the Press, on the importation of foreign literature, on the Customs relations between the two countries, on trade marks and copyrights, on the monetary system, on means of communication, on navigation and on the rights of aliens. The Act was an enabling Act. An amendment introduced during its passage through the Duma provided that no Bill affecting Finland can be

introduced except on the Czar's initiative A Bill for transferring the. Finnish pile: service to the Russian Admiralty WOR drawn up in 1911 for presentation to th Duma.

It will thus be seen how gradually Russin has deprived the Finns of civic freedom. That is why we have expressed doubts to whether Russia can be really in earvest in her promises to grant autonom to Poland. Besides, it appears from the mail papers now to hand that Russia and Austria in promising to grant c only followed the examples of Germany rights to the Poles; she was not the first to make such promises.

The significance of Reuter's telegram is that the Finns, deprived of politica freedom, are not to be allowed to dis tinguish themselves even in interna tional athletic contests in their ow national name. If they want to compete they must do so styling themselves Russians or Russian subjects; so that t world may forget that there is a peop called the Finns who can give a god account of themselves in some sphers of human activity even though they have lost political independence. i

Russia were the ruler of India and if the order were passed that Rabindranath Tagore must be styled, not the Indian Nobel Prize Laureate, but a Russian Nob Prize Laureate, there would be a somewha parallel case illustrating Russian despotic methods.

The last Olympic Games were held in Stockholm in 1912, and the next are ar ranged to be held in Berlin in 1916. In Stockholm H. Kolehmainen of Finland won the 5,000 metres race, doing the dis tance in about 14 minutes 36 seconds won the 10,000 metres race, doing the distance in about 31 minutes 20 seconds and the cross country race of about 8,00 metres in about 45 minutes 11 seconds A metre is equal to 39:37 inches. Besides Kolehmainen, other Finns distinguishe themselves by standing first in som events. J. J. Saaristo threw the javelin to a distance of about 358 feet and 11 inches. A. R. Taipale threw the discus with his best hand to a distance of about 148 feet and 3 inches and with the right and left hand to a distance of about 271 feet and 10 inches.

PE

ERHAPS there is no movement of modern times which is so full of promise for the future of mankind as that of co-operation. Its principle is as old as the world itself, but it was only since the latter part of the 19th century that any systematic attempts has been made to apply it for the promotion of human welfare and the success that has undoubtedly attended it in this comparatively short space of time naturally raises up in the minds of thoughtful men vistas of possible social progress hitherto undreamt of. In India the movement was inaugurated only a few years ago, but the status to which it has now attained and :he many admitted beneficent results that have emanated from its operations are the marvel and the admiration of those who have been watching it, and justify the expectations entertained of it by competent observers of its efficiency, if properly guided, to realise to the full its every indusrial and social aspiration. Owing to the lifferent agencies employed in its organication and the divergent conditions under which it has had to operate the movement has not proceeded upon the same uniform ines in all the Provinces, each of which as types of societies and features of interest peculiar to its own, and it cannot but be of great interest and profit to trace its levelopment and study the problems it presents in one of the leading among them.

With the principle of the credit side of the movement which has hitherto been the most prominent feature of Indian Co-operative progress, Madras has long been famihar. In one form or other (lotteries, chit associations or nidhies) it has always existed for the mutual accommodation of persons in need of financial assitance, and comparatively poor people could get the use of considerable sums by small monthly subscriptions, the monthly colections being handed to each person in turn as decided by the fall of the lot or in some less desirable way. This predisposition of the native mind, sharpened by that need which has been the best incentive to

co-operation in all countries, has produced in Madras a most remarkable development which, though inferior to that in some other Provinces when measured by the number of existing societies, is second to none in the soundness and efficieney of the lines on which it has proceeded and in the great moral and material benefits which it has bestowed upon its votaries. To this success of a novel and rather difficult experiment among an ignorant and caste-ridden population, the keen interest and the great tact and judgment displayed by the successive Registrars of Co-operative Societies, and the truly philanthropic labours of bands of volunteer workers have also contributed in no small a measure, and posterity will re-call the names these pioneers with extreme respect and veneration.

GENERAL PROGRESS.

of

The

The table shows continued and satisfactory progress in all directions. number of societies increased rapidly, the rate of increase being not less than 58 per cent. in any year except 1912-1913, and sometimes as high as 109 (1909-10) and 133 (1906-07) per cent. The comparatively low percentage (eleven) of last year is explained as due to more attention having been paid to the solidification of existing societies than to the organization of new ones. Indeed, but for this wise policy of paying more regard to efficiency than to a rapid increase in volume, the number of societies registered every year would have been vastly greater than has

chan is derived from share capital is obained by way of deposits from members hough here too a gradual and persistent ecline is observed. Its percentages in the everal years compared were respectively -5, 37, 32, 28, 24, 23, and 20. In exlanation of the large amounts of the members' deposits, it has been stated that he movement has been very early suppored by the well-to-do people, who have reely joined the societies with their poorer brethren and put in a portion of their savings to help them. This is really a opeful sign, as the admission of the wellto-do classes, besides bringing in cash, rings business capacity with them and giving prestige to the societies inspires public confidence.

The deposits from non-members formed a percentage of 7, 18, 20, 17, 17, 25, 27, and 26 respectively to the total working capital in the several years. The figures show a pronounced tendency on the part of the outside public to use the co-operative societies as Savings Banks and are an eloquent tribute to the confidence and security which the movement has been able to inspire among the people at large.

Next to share capital and deposits from members and non-members, the chief source of the supply of capital is the loans from other societies, especially the Central Societies. The important role played by the latter in financing the movement will be described later on. In the early days, the Government helped the agricultural societies by advancing loans on rather philanthropic terms. By the orders of the Government of India, such loans were free of interest for a period of three years counting from the date of registration of the society concerned, and were re-payable in 10 equal annual instalments beginning with the 4th year with interest at 4 per cent., per annum on the balance against the society. The loan advanced on these terms amounted altogether to Rs. 96,310 and were disbursed in the first 4 years, after which there has been no further need for them. Another philanthropic loan to the amount of Rs. 4,987 was advanced during the same period on almost identical terms from the fund allotted to the Presidency by the Hon'ble Sir D. M. Hamilton. The time is however now long past when Madras stood in need of such philanthropic aid, and she is now one of the few provinces of India in which state-aid has been com

pletely dispensed with and the movement has been able to finance itself independently from other sources.

As will be seen from the figures in the statement given above, the reserve fund has kept on increasing at as high a rate as it is possible to do so. This increase has an important bearing, as the Regis trar remarks, on the future working of the societies, inasmuch as the larger the reserve fund, the sooner will the financial independence of the societies be accomplished. Madras differs from the other parts of India in her treatment of the reserve. Whereas elsewhere it is regarded as part of the working capital of the societies that have earned it, in this Presidency it is kept distinct from the cannot be lent to general fund and members nor drawn upon by any society except with the previous sanction of the Registrar. To avoid the possible tempta tion to any society to dissolve itself for the purpose of distributing the reserve fund among it members, rules have been framed by many societies prohibiting its division under any circumstances, and ordering it to be transferred in the event of the dissolution of the society to any new one that might be formed in its locality, or failing it, to be devoted to any other useful purpose in the village concerned.

THE VARIOUS FORMS OF SOCIETIES

AND THEIR WORKING.

From the general progress sketched above it will be seen that the people of Madras have shown themselves capable of realizing and to a certain extent taking advantage of the great possibilities of the new movement. As yet it is only the credit societies that have received any adequate attention, and of them there are three main kinds, viz., Central Societies, Agricultural and Non-Agricultural Societies. Societies for other than credit purposes are also gradually making their appearance, such as those for purchase and sale, for production, etc. These production, administration, various forms and their working will now be described.

CREDIT SOCIETIES. (A) CENTRAL BANKS.

Of the Central Credit Banks, there are two main types. One, represented by the Madras Central Urban Bank, is constituted on joint-stock principles, doing busi