Report regarding the possibility of introducing : land and agricultural banks into the Madras presidency

The following report has been written to the order of the Madras Government as conveyed in G.O. dated 15th March 1892, His Excellency Lord Wenlock being desirous of assisting the organization of rural credit through Land and Agricul tural banks in this Presidency, in view to the replacement of the individual money-lender and to the development of the economic condition of the country.

The delay in submitting the report is due to many causes, principally to the immensity and complexity of the subject, to the difficulty of ascertaining and then of obtaining sources of information, to the discontinuity thereby imposed when a half finished study had to be broken off till the receipt of further information, to the extreme difficulty arising from the incessant demands of a Collector's work, notwithstanding two periods of special duty. Until 1894 there was, practically, no English work even on the one subject of Popular banks, while the sources of detailed information are, even now, only in foreign languages; and it is believed that there is no existing work in English on the Land and Savings banks systems, or upon the credit systems and indebtedness of the landed proprietor, of the European continent. For the Madras Presi dency statistics and information did not exist, and it is only through much enquiry and by the courtesy of numerous correspondents that information has been obtained. A list of the questions originally issued and of the correspon dents to whom they were sent, will be found in the appendix.