338 AWAKENING OF ENGLAND. 



Since private banks became limited 

 liability companies the advances made by the 

 old-fashioned country banker— who was as 

 often as not also a gentleman farmer— to small 

 agriculturists have almost ceased to exist. 

 The new manager of a branch, who has 

 been reared in the atmosphere of the Stock 

 Exchange, and would hardly know a heifer from 

 a steer, or a gilt from a boar, is naturally shy 

 of advancing money to agriculturists, in spite 

 of his knowledge of the bulls and bears which 

 haunt Throgmorton Avenue. By private 

 effort the total capital invested in credit 

 banks in the whole of England amounts to 

 the ludicrous sum of £1600. 



Without formulating complicated schemes, 

 which are generally a compromise between 

 public and private enterprise, so dear to the 

 heart of legislators, and so bewildering to the 

 plain man, it seems to me that the best way is 

 the simple and direct way. 



We could easily advance money without 

 the setting up of any new public authority 

 or the formation of any new syndicate. There 

 is already the national bank, in the shape of 

 the Post Office, a branch of which is to be 

 found in every remote parish in England. 



