AGRICULTURAL CREDIT. DAVIDSON. 477 



to pay their taxes, to pay rent, and to pay the money lender. 

 They raise money by mortgage in order that they may travel, and 

 that they may expend it in extravagant living ; they speculate 

 with it, and they relend it. Politicians pay their political debts 

 by means of mortgages. Wives pay the debts of their husbands 

 and educate them for the ministry. Men mortgage their real 

 estate to pay their physician, their undertaker, and their lawyers, 

 to help their friends and relatives to make good their defalca- 

 tions, to educate their children, and to support their parents." 

 (U. S. Census, 1890, Mortgage Vol., p. 279). But after all, loans 

 for such purposes form but a small part of the whole, not G per 

 cent, of the number, not 2 per cent, of the amount in the United 

 States ; and probably this proportion holds true of Canada, 

 although we have no definite information. Most of the mort- 

 gages are incurred to effect improvements of a more or less 

 permanent character. 



Information is lacking regarding the rate of interest which 

 is paid on mortgages in Canada. There is no doubt that it is 

 high, although in New Brunswick, at least, the rate is falling, 

 and corporations which have money which they must invest in 

 first-class securities are being forced to consider whether it is 

 worth while to invest in mortgages which now bring a grudging 

 six per cent, only, with a prospect that five will soon be all that 

 is obtainable. It is because the rate of interest is high that 

 there is a demand in some quarters that the state should place 

 its credit at the disposal of the farmers to enable them to borrow 

 at less than the present market rate. Such a proposal is regarded 

 with great alarm in some quarters, but there is ample and 

 conservative precedent for it. The English Royal Commission 

 on Agriculture, recognizing the demand for " increased outlay on 

 improvements necessitated by changes in agriculture," recom- 

 mended state loans to farmers, for which they claimed rightly 

 that there was ample precedent in English agrarian legislation. 

 The gist of the evidence laid before this commission brings out, 

 according to Mr. Wolff (People's Banks, p. 54.) that " wherever 

 in agriculture there is ample command of money for working a 



