240 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



landschaften, specifically identified with rural economy. The idea 

 of so blending the unblendable, so it will have to be admitted, was 

 not an over-happy one, and, though it is still far too early to draw 

 any definite conclusion, the result, so far as it goes, seems to bear 

 witness to its impracticableness. 



Raiffeisen societies, as we know, will on principle have nothing 

 whatever to do with mortgages, and tolerate them only so far as is 

 absolutely unavoidable, and then only as collateral security — 

 personal security in all cases standing first. And they have expressly 

 and formally declined to accept the task which the Farm Loan 

 Act specifically sets to societies formed ostensibly in imitation of 

 them, that is, of acting as valuers of members' properties on behalf 

 of a mortgage credit institution. Also, the idea of forming an 

 " association " for one specific purpose only — and that a peculiarly 

 financial, gain-seeking one, and for a limited time — is altogether in 

 conflict with their settled principles ; and the entrusting of the 

 main executive business to a " treasurer-secretary " — whom Mr. 

 Morman describes as the " vital force " of the American institution 

 — is absolutely abhorrent to them. They expressly exclude the 

 treasurer-secretary — " actuary," they call him — from the com- 

 mittee — not from the association (as Mr. Morman allows) — and 

 make him a purely mechanical carrier-out of the committee's 

 decisions, without a voice in the matter. The landschaft, on the 

 other hand, will have nothing to do with the " object " for which 

 the loan is asked — which the Farm Loan Act, together with the 

 " character " of the applicant (limiting membership absolutely to 

 borrowers and borrowership to actual farmers or persons intending 

 to become such) places in the forefront of conditions to determine 

 the concession of the loan. It takes ample security for its loan, 

 watches over that security to prevent deterioration of the pledge, 

 and punishes impairment of it. But it looks no further. 



Before formulating its stipulations as to the character of the 

 security to be tendered— which security, if the conditions prescribed 

 are observed, will be found to be ample — the American Farm Loan 

 Act lays it down that the applicant should prove that he is a thrifty, 

 well-conducted man, a skilled agriculturist, managing his farm well, 

 and able to derive from it a sufficient living, who borrows for the 

 purpose of improving his holding and who has run the gauntlet of 

 an unanimous election by his proposed fellow members. In view 

 of the amplitude of the security taken, one cannot for the life of one 

 see what business these provisions have in this connection — especially 

 as the indispensable corollary to such precept is wholly wanting, 



