482 AGRICULTURAL CREDIT. DAVIDSON. 



coming on any steamer from St. John or Halifax to Liverpool 

 during the year, to pay all freight charges on poultry shipped to 

 Montreal in excess of one dollar per hundred pounds. On the 

 other side of the Atlantic, almost equal care and anxiety is 

 shown by the agents of the department that the produce o^ 

 Canadian farms shall receive the best price and gain the best 

 reputation that can be obtained. 



It is no wonder that the president of a Farmers' Supply 

 Association in the old country, with whom I had some corres- 

 pondence in relation to this report, should declare that in the 

 provision of facilities of all kinds the Canadian farmer is a full 

 generation ahead of the farmer in the mo therland. 



But it may be asked why should the Government not go one 

 step further and adopt the Australasian policy of assisting the 

 farmer in producing as well as in marketing ? Why not lend 

 the credit of the state to the farmer to enable him to borrow 

 money more cheaply to make improvements or simply to make 

 the business of farming profitable ? It is true that we need not 

 trouble ourselves much about words, for if state lending on mort- 

 gage is socialistic, what shall we say about the manifold activi- 

 ties of the agricultural departments? The New Zealander has 

 not been frightened at the word, and indeed declares that the 

 epithet is misapplied. The essence of socialism is state owner- 

 ship of the means of production, and the effect of this kind of 

 state activity is to establish individual ownership more firmly. 

 The New Zealander is of the opinion, according to Mr. Lloyd 

 (Newest England, p. 375) that his action simply amounts to "the 

 state giving its principal efforts to the stimulation, as a silent 

 partner, wise counsellor and democratic co-operator, of the 

 enterprise and industry of the individual." It may, moreover, 

 be easily argued that in a democratic country, government aid is 

 simply a highly organized form of self-help, that the people are 

 using the machinery of the state for the ends for which it was 

 devised, viz., the good of the citizens. 



This is true. At times we may look at things in this way, 



