AGRICULTURAL CREDIT.—DAVIDSON. 481 
and to individual Galician settlers, the loans being secured by 
liens on the land. Beyond these, I know of no direct lending by 
the Canadian government. 
Yet the Canadian governments, in their own way, are doing 
a great deal to make the business of farming profitable. The 
provision of cheap credit is not the sole condition of success, and 
many of the other conditions are provided. I need not say any- 
thing about the assistance which the government gives in 
establishing and maintaining creameries and cheese factories, or 
of the instruction how to make the best use of his opportunities 
oftered the farmer by means of the agents of the departments. 
From one point of view, this assistance might be regarded as a 
system of technical education for farmers; from another point 
of view, as the quid pro quo given to the farmer who has borne 
the chief part of the burden of the attempt to build up indus- 
tries by protection. These, however, are but the beginning of 
what the government does, and when one contemplates the vast 
projects upon which we, as a people, have embarked, or are 
likely to embark, it seems almost necessary to call caution. 
Practically, the agricultural departments have made it their aim 
to remove all obstacles in the way of finding a market. It uses 
its vast power and machinery to form an intelligence burean in 
the interests of thefarmer. It has improved the means of trans- 
portation ; it has insisted on coal storage on train and steamer, 
and it has erected cold storage facilities in farming districts and 
at seaports ; in some cases it insures the farmer against some of 
the ravages of nature ; it has brought the best of all markets to 
his door; it buys eggs and butter and poultry from him at a 
fixed price, and pays over to him any surplus, and events may 
foree it to buy the fruit crop in so far as that is intended for 
export; it buys oats from him on account of the imperial 
government, and when it succeeds in making a better bargain 
than anticipated with the steamship companies, hands the profit 
over to the farmer. And as I write, my evening paper comes to 
tell me that in order to encourage poultry-raising in the mari- 
time provinces, the Dominion Department of Agriculture has 
decided, in the event of cold storage facilities not being forth- 
