304 PROVISION OF BOEEOWING FACILITIES. 



marked as to show that there are particular reasons for it, some 

 perhaps historical in the custom which has continued from last century 

 when Frederick the Great erected the first land credit societies by his 

 simple fiat, some, certainly, in the nature of the operations to be 

 undertaken and the class of people to be dealt with. It is, in fact, 

 held by some European economists, German especially, that the State 

 should undertake banking as it Joes the Post office, Railways, the 

 Currency, etc. Others, on the contrary, object to State intervention, 

 as savouring of State socialism, as tending to cramp, or even stifle the 

 business energies and independent action of a nation, as developing 

 still further that dominant bureaucratic action which is so all-prevailing 

 and powerful in Europe; as favouring in the matter of credit the 

 class of borrowers at the expense of the general tax-payer. Others 

 however believe that, while not bound to direct action, there are 

 conditions which call for State interference in favour of an industry 

 agriculture the stability of which is so absolutely necessary to the 

 welfare of a nation, and they would admit or even require State inter- 

 vention by way of encouragement and promotion, subvention and 

 guarantee, control and supervision, and privileged procedure. These 

 last opinions are almost universal in Europe where the conditions and 

 history of society are so utterly different from those of England, and 

 it will be seen that State intervention in all the last mentioned forms 

 is absolutely universal, not indeed in all forms for all banks, but for all 

 land banks in one form or other. 



Government control and supervision in varying degrees are then 

 universal in Europe in the matter of land banks ; it is recognised 

 whether in France, Germany, Austria or Italy, that land banks 

 must be controlled or at least supervised by Government authorities; 

 the absolute need of agriculture for capital on moderate terms ; 

 the impossibility and danger under existing conditions of 

 supplying it by private lenders ; the inability of the people 

 generally, under these conditions, to start and successfully 

 work a land bank without State assistance and guidance; the 

 evil of allowing newly-started banks to risk their credit iih loose or 

 misdirected operations with the consequent danger of failure and 

 irretrievable damage to credit in frightening capital from associated 

 and systematic effort; the danger that, without such control, the 

 landowner might find that he had merely exchanged the private usurer 

 for a mechanical screw-vice provided with powers of coercion, specially 



