PROVIDING THE FUNDS 15» 



operative banks, severally of the Schulze Delitzsch and the Raiffeisen 

 type, serving to both as ultimate supplier of credit. The co- 

 operative banks will bring to the larger banks custom, directly, by 

 borrowing from them and lodging surplus deposits with them ; and 

 they will eventually supply them with new customers by raising 

 up people who now cannot afford to keep a banking account, such 

 as ordinary banks value, to a " bankable " level. The difficulty 

 with rural people that I have now in view is this, that on one or 

 other of the following points, or on all, their case falls far short of 

 what a large bank would consider acceptable. They cannot spare 

 the time to go to the bank, or else they cannot make themselves 

 understood by the " fine gentlemen in frock coats," used to very 

 different business, or make their case understood by them. American 

 bankers, quicker in discernment of small matters than our own, 

 have come to discern this and have in consequence, to provide a 

 medium for establishing intelligence between the two heterogeneous 

 parties, appointed " farmers " on their several staffs to conduct 

 farming business. But even that device will not serve to cover the 

 whole ground. Our rural folk, moreover, as a rule, have no " bank- 

 able ' security to offer in exchange for credit ; and naturally 

 banks will not lend money on any other. In short, here are two 

 worlds to bring into contact, without any visible link or common 

 feature between them — worlds which do not understand one another, 

 which do not even speak the same language, but which certainly 

 require to be brought into contact, because they have distinct 

 need of one another. They move on different planes, and the 

 question is how to bridge over the gulf which separates them and 

 establish contact. We know that in rural districts credit is badly 

 wanted for business, for quite legitimate business purposes. We also 

 know that where there is a want and there are no means of satisfying 

 it, the devil will readily creep in to gather his harvest in the shape 

 of usury. Usury is, in fact, rife in our farmers' and small cultivators' 

 world in a variety of shapes, not only in cent.-per-cent. bills, but 

 also in dealers' credit, at something like the same rate, reducing 

 impecunious men to a state of peonage — let alone the continuance 

 of backward and unprofitable cultivation. And usury, as L6on 

 Say has rightly laid it down, can be grappled with only on the spot, 

 at close quarters. Moreover, small men, having their work to do, 

 upon which their living depends, on their holding, have not much 

 time to spare for going any distance to a bank. Therefore, it is 

 indispensable, if they are to be able to raise money by credit, that 

 they should have the lending counter close at hand. 



