460 AGRICULTURAL CREDIT. DAVIDSON. 



requisites of business, viz., capital and credit ; and to the exam- 

 ination of some of these, and to an investigation of the relation 

 of the Canadian farmer to our existing credit institutions, this 

 paper is devoted. The greater part of it was presented* as a 

 report to a committee of the New Brunswick Fanners' Congress, 

 which had been appointed to discuss the problem of cheaper 

 money for the farmer. It was presented after a statement by 

 the committee of the abuses and wrongs to which the farmer 

 has to submit. In the opinion oi the writer, the committee did 

 not make out a very strong case, although some striking instan- 

 ces of usurious rates of interest and of the disabilities of reput- 

 able farmers in approaching a bank, were given. The negative 

 character of the conclusions drawn in the report was thus, in a 

 measure, justified by the failure of the committee to make out 

 its case, and there is not, in the opinion of the writer, much 

 room for general regret that schemes successful elsewhere are 

 not adapted to our Canadian conditions. 



The description of the difficulties in the way of the farmer 

 obtaining the credit the modern conditions of his business 

 demands, which has been given by Mr. Hubbard, naturally 

 raises the question why it is that the farmer has not shared, to 

 the full, the benefits which a developed banking system has con- 

 ferred on other industries. Is there any reason in the nature of 

 things, or has it been simply an accident, that the banks have 

 not served the farmer as they serve the merchant or the manu- 

 facturer ? Credit is just as necessary in agriculture as in 

 commerce and industry, and it is therefore necessary to enquire 

 whether agriculture and commerce, for instance, are so different 



o ' 



in character that the credit they require cannot be provided by 

 one institution. Only after coming to the conclusion that our 

 present banking system is not suited to provide agricultural 

 credit, as it provides commercial credit, need we take the trouble 

 to consider remedies adopted in other countries to deal with a 

 similar situation. 



Broadly speaking, there is a marked difference. Returns in 

 agriculture are slower than returns in trade and industry. The 



* 28th January, 1902. 



