SECURITY FOR OUTLAY 237 



off the less secure mortgages owing beyond the limit allowed by 

 landschaft regulations, at a higher rate of interest, of course, and 

 with a considerable shorter time allowed for " amortisation," pro- 

 vided that the borrower would formally bind himself not to borrow 

 afresh on the property pledged. The proposal excited much interest 

 and appears to have been in some cases acted upon. However, the 

 inevitable drawback is that the owner, binding himself under such 

 an engagement, necessarily sacrifices his personal credit, people not 

 caring to give credit to a man so tied down. 



We have not yet endeavoured to devise a substitute. But the 

 Americans being, with their accustomed shrewdness, more alive to 

 the importance and even necessity of providing readily accessible 

 agencies for long credit have, as a result of the inquiries attaching to 

 the American Commission's visit to Europe, devised a system of 

 their own, which is now on trial — in the fifth year of its applica- 

 tion—on trial all over the Federation. Its provisions are laid down 

 in the Farm Loan Act, of the enduring results of which it is still too 

 early to judge, but which, as already stated, a well- supported 

 endeavour is being made to reshape on more genuinely co-operative 

 lines. 



Cumbrous and anachronistic — at any rate in our insular eyes — 

 over-burdened with bureaucracy and official red tape, as the German 

 landschaft is, even in its most modernised shape, the excellent idea 

 which it harbours, and for which the world is indebted to King 

 Frederick the Great's adviser, Herr Busing— the idea, that is, of 

 grouping borrowers together in sufficient volume to permit of the 

 successful issuing of negotiable bonds, allowing the mortgage loans 

 to be cleared off at an almost imperceptible rate of " amortisa- 

 tion," spread over a long period — sixty, seventy years, and more — 

 giving the borrower in the meantime at his own option absolute 

 command of the money borrowed — very naturally proved too 

 valuable not to suggest acceptance elsewhere. In more or Leas its 

 original shape the landschaft has found its way into Austria, Hungary, 

 Russia (as it was before the War), and Sweden. In a more demo- 

 cratic shape it has become a valued economic institution in Denmark.* 

 And, still admittedly serving as model, it has secured a firm footing 

 in France and lately also, reshaped once more, in the United States 

 and the adjoining Dominion. One main condition to success being 



* A pretty full apoounl of Hie various forms whioh the acceptance of 

 the principle of the landschaft baa taken, up to the time o| publication, 



will be found in my "Co-operative Hanking: Its i'rinciples and I'' 

 tioe," published by Messrs. P. S. King & Son, in i'- H, <- lUi ' ,,,mk 

 contains a special chapter on " Co-operative Bfoi ' relit. 



