480 AGRICULTURAL CREDIT. DAVIDSON. 



his indebtedness, and when it finds itself making a protit out of 

 the business, instead of accumulating a fortune, gives him the 

 benefit by reducing his rate." 



New Zealand charges interest at the rate of 5 per cent., and 

 up till 1900 had made about 7000 loans, amounting to more than 

 ten million dollars, and it is claimed that not a cent has been 

 lost, and that in 1900 there was not a penny of interest or prin- 

 cipal due which had not been collected. The entrance of the 

 government into the business of lending money, brought rates 

 down all over the country, and not only those who borrowed 

 from the government, but all borrowers, had the benefit of a 

 reduction in the rate of interest of something like two per cent- 

 One supporter of the New Zealand government claimed that " the 

 action of the slate in entering the money-market has made an 

 average reduction of 2 per cent, on 32,000,000 of landed 

 indebtedness, and 32,000,000 of other debts." The benefit may 

 not have been as great as this and yet have been very great in 

 its immediate effects. 



The state advances money to the Australasian farmer at 

 both ends. It advances money on his farm, and then lends him 

 money on its produce and helps him to market it at the best 

 terms. With this latter activity of the state on behalf of the 

 farmer we are more familiar in Canada. Neither Dominion nor 

 provincial governments have yet found it necessary or advisable 

 to lend its credit to its farmers. Ontario is a slight exception, 

 that province, I believe, making slight advances for purposes of 

 drainage. But the Department of Agriculture, with all its mani- 

 fold paternal activity on behalf of the farmer, has not advanced 

 money for improvement or for cultivation at least to the native 

 farmer. To some classes of immigrants small advances have been 

 made by another department. The Mennonites received a loan 

 of nearly $100,000, which has all been repaid with interest ; the 

 early Icelandic settlements received some $30,000, which, owing 

 to adverse circumstances in the settlement, had to be written off 

 as a bad debt, the security being destroyed by disastrous floods ; 

 and similar small advances have been made to the Dcukhobors 



