390 PROVISION OE BOEROWINO FACILITIES. 





and lack the effectiveness of the machine in industry. In certain 

 important branches of agriculture the period of production may 

 extend over several years : thus a foal requires three or four years, 

 and a calf two or three years before becoming utilisable or marketable. 

 And the returns of agricultural production are more uncertain than 

 those of commerce and industry owing to accidents of harvest, risk of 

 disease, perishability of produce, and other causes. Another 

 peculiarity making due allowance for depressions and for numerous 

 seasonal trades outside agriculture is the irregularity of monetary 

 returns from year to year or their tendency to fall in certain months 

 or periods in each year. Unless his farming is mixed the farmer 

 obtains his main receipts in autumn, when he sells his crops. Under 

 these circumstances a banking system which aims at a rapid 

 turnover of funds and grants credits of three and four months, with 

 one or two renewals for like periods, is of very little advantage. 



Urban bankers, being naturally more conversant with commercial 

 or industrial undertakings, are less capable of judging the standing 

 of a farmer and his business capacity. Credit implies confidence 

 anl facility of supervision ; but the banker is unacquainted with 

 farming, and farms are comparatively isolated units, usually more 

 or less remote from the banking office. Ordinary commercial tests 

 are not often applicable, especially where smaller farmers, whose 

 book-keeping is apt to be very incomplete and unmethodical, are 

 concerned. The same difficulty presents itself as to any proposed 

 sureties, who are also likely to be farmers. Other banking security is 

 often out of the question ; and the procuring and bringing of 

 sureties to the bank involves great possible loss of time and expense. 

 The world in which the banker or bank manager moves is not that 

 of the farmer, so that personal knowledge is infrequent. The whole 

 situation is rendered even more unfavourable by the supplanting of 

 small country bankers by branches of great banks, which are directed 

 on fixed lines from headquarters, and whose managers are frequently 

 changed. Commercial banks cannot, moreover, be brought nearer 

 than small towns ; even a branch office (as distinct from a mere 

 depositing office) entails a minimum expenditure for salaries*" and 

 office of from 300 or 400 per annum. The smaller farmers offer 

 also little attraction to the ordinary commercial banks as borrowers, 

 and, apart from other disadvantages, pay for the small loans they 

 require an unduly high percentage as interest and commission. As a 



