460 AGRICULTURAL CREDIT.—DAVIDSON. 
requisites of business, viz., capital and credit ; and to the exam- 
ination of some of these, and to an investigation of the relation 
of the Canadian farmer to our existing credit institutions, this 
paper is devoted. The greater part of it was presented* as a 
report to a committee of the New Brunswick Farmers’ Congress, 
which had been appointed to discuss the problem of cheaper 
money for the farmer. It was presented after a statement by 
the committee of the abuses and wrongs to which the farmer 
has to submit. In the opinion of the writer, the committee did 
not make out avery strong case, although some striking instan- 
ces of usurious rates of interest and of the disabilities of reput- 
able farmers in approaching a bank, were given. The negative 
character of the conclusions drawn in the report was thus, in a 
measure, justified by the failure of the committee to make out 
its case, and there is not, in the opinion of the writer, much 
room for general regret that schemes successful elsewhere are 
not adapted to our Canadian conditions. 
The description of the difficulties in the way of the farmer 
obtaining the credit the modern conditions of his business 
demands, which has been given by Mr. Hubbard, naturally 
raises the question why it is that the farmer has not shared, to 
the full, the benefits which a developed banking system has con- 
ferred on other industries. Is there any reason in the nature of 
things, or has it been simply an accident, that the banks have 
not served the farmer as they serve the merchant or the manu- 
facturer ? Credit is just as necessary in agriculture as in 
commerce and industry, and it is therefore necessary to enquire 
whether agriculture and commerce, for instance, are so different 
in character that the credit they require cannot be provided by 
one institution. Only after coming to the conclusion that our 
present banking system is not suited to provide agricultural 
credit, as it provides commercial credit, need we take the trouble 
to consider remedies adopted in other countries to deal with a 
similar situation. 
Broadly speaking, there isa marked difference. Returns in 
agriculture are slower than returns in trade and industry. The 
* 28th January, 1902. 
