PROVISION OF BORROWING FACILITIES. 29$ 



with the hundred inquiries necessary on each occasion, and on the 

 fluctuating security available, than to deal with ordinary land revenue 

 duties. No such organization has anywhere except in India been 

 even dreamed of ; not even in France with her centralizing tendencies. 

 Nor, indeed, has the State funds for general dealing in ordinary 

 credit. Inadvisable, for if possible, it would render the whole popula- 

 tion dependent upon the State; it would enormously develop 

 bureaucratic interference in the everyday affairs of life ; it would be 

 an unheard of experiment in State socialism, and would absolutely 

 confirm the already overwhelming tendency of this country to look 

 to the State not only in all emergencies but in the ordinary affairs 

 of life, to consider it as answerable for or bound to relieve its mis- 

 fortunes and to accept the burden of all its debts and poverty ; it 

 would develop, in a high degree, the habit of attempting to 

 over-reach and defraud that entity vaguely known as " Government " 

 which is usually credited with unlimited means and with the ability 

 to overlook individual debts ; it would add the odium of the bailiff 

 to that of the tax-collector odio vectigali odium fenelre ; it would 

 choke all private enterprise and, still worse, the development of those 

 habits of providence, thrift, self and mutual help which are among 

 the highest qualities of a nation. 



Functions of the State. But the State must assist the development 

 of organized credit. The functions of the State in the matter of 

 rural credit are considerable ; it must remove all disabilities and 

 obstacles which prevent lender and borrower from meeting on fairly 

 equal terms ; it must stimulate competition with the money-lender by 

 suggesting and favouring the establishment of credit associations of 

 various classes ; it must legislate for the due formation and manage- 

 ment of such associations, with a special leaning to co-operative 

 associations as stimulative of essential national qualities ; it should 

 grant certain privileges which cannot be safely entrusted to private 

 individuals ; it should provide for efficient supervision ; arid it may 

 grant some moderate subventions, either as working or as mere start- 

 ing func!js. 



The State cannot do much by direct means to place lenders and 

 borrowers on 'equal terms ; education is a chief means, but one of 

 very slow growth. A usury law is generally a mistake, but the 

 toodern German form, though perhaps too drastic in its penalties, is 

 a great advance upon those ancient laws which lay down an arbitrary 



