BANKING IN KERALA 45 26 Ibid. 27 For more details of the development of the bank, see C P Matben, op.cit., p 35. 28 Through the withdrawal of state funds from the bank, followed by malicious propaganda (that the bank is goin.ff to be liquidated soon)deploying the entire machinery of government forcing government officers to withdraw funds, filing a case against the management "against all canons of criminal law" (as the Advocate General of India later described it), the Dewan of Travancore succeeded in making a run on the bank. Though the official liquidator squandered the assets of the bank by writing off large outstanding loans to favour people, selling physical assets (including the headquarters which was made a public memorial to the dewan later) at throwaway prices to the dcwan^s henchmen including the gentleman who was made Special High Court Judge to arbitrate on this case and other mean measures, the bank was able to pay the depositors almost a rupee for a rupee. 29 Ronado Cameron (ed.) Banking and Economic Development: Some Lessons of History, Oxford 1972, pp 7-8. 80 C P Mathen, op.cit., p 37. 8 k Alexander Gerschenkron, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective, Cambridge, Mass 1962. chapter 1. Newberger and Stokes, "German Banks and German Growth 1883-1914, an Empirical View", The Journal of Economic History, vol XXXIV, no 3, September 1974. 83 L S Pressnell, Country Banking in the Industrial Revolution., Clarendon Press, Oxford 1956, chapter 9. It is known from informed persons that several banks used to employ bank resources for private business of their founding directors and near relatives. 88 SKMuranjan, op.cit., p 248. 84 Informed persons say that the apparent provocation for running independent kuri and bank originated when the church authorities refused to give loans from the kuri fund to a section of the poor parishioners during the lean months. The rich families who championed their cause started the Chaldean Syrian Bank. 88 The communal nomenclature of banks is a distinguishing feature of banking in the Cochin area. Even as late as 1951, out of 81 joint-stock banks in the Cochin area, 27 or one-third bore a communal name and of these, 22 were Christian names. 86 In 1960, even when Calcutta^ position became third (11 registered offices) Trichur was second (22), Bombay (31) was the first. In terms of banking the small town of Trichur was in the good company of cities like Bombay and Calcutta. Out of the 8 banks in Kerala now, 5 have their headquarters at Trichur. 87 Travancore-Co chin Banking Enquiry Committee Report, 1956, p 51. 88 These ratios were worked out from the balance sheet data of reporting banks in the Statistical Tables Relating to Banks, which leave out a large number of smaller banks with more vulnerable credit deposit ratios. Their inclusion would have shown still worse figures. 89 Trauancore-Cochin Banking Enquiry Committee Report, 1956, table on p 31 based on a survey of 136 banks. 40 Ibid. 4 l Along with entreprenueriship, banking is a necessary condition of economic development in Schumpeter^s theory of developcrnent: J \ Schumpeter, The Theory of Economic Development, Cambridge, Mass. 1933; A Theoretical, Historical and Statistical Analysis of the Capitalist Process, New York 1939. Alexander Gerschenkron considered the German banks as they evolved during the early decades of this century "a powerful invention comparable in economic effects to that of the steam engine", A Ger-shenkron, Continuity in History and Other Essays, Cambridge, Mass. 1968, p 137. See also his Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective, Cambridge, Masr. 1962. 42 R Cameron et al, discuss the several hypotheses about the role of banking in