98 AGRICULTURAL INDEBTEDNESS 



until the patrimony of the peasant is in the usurer's 

 hands. In good seasons, when the debt might be paid 

 off, the debt is not pressed for payment, but rather 

 avoided ; in bad seasons, or on inconvenient occa- 

 sions, the money-lender suddenly requires his money, 

 till the wretched peasant signs away his whole 

 property." 



' The pages of M. Durand in " Le Credit Agricole," 

 may usefully be studied in this matter, and in an 

 admirable article on " Le Credit Agricole en 1893 " {Le 

 Correspondmit, June, 1893), he says : " L'usure dans les 

 compagnes fran^aises est infiniment plus repandue 

 qu'on ne le suppose " (Usury in the country districts 

 of France is infinitely more common than is generally 

 supposed). His own original impression was other- 

 wise, but " en cherchant bien, en nous informant soig- 

 neusement, nous avons fini par apprendre que les 

 meilleurs de nos fermiers, et les plus riches cultiva- 

 teurs de notre commune, empruntaient chaque annee 

 des sommes plus ou moins importantes au taux de 10 

 pour 100" (After careful inquiry we have learnt that 

 the best of our farmers and the richest cultivators of 

 our neighbourhood borrow every year sums of more 

 or less importance at the rate of 10 per cent.). If the 

 richer classes of farmer are compelled every year to 

 borrow at 10 per cent, what must be the rates ordi- 

 narily paid by the small folk, to say nothing of bad 

 years and unfortunate folk ? 



' As for usury in cattle, it is equally common and 

 wasteful to the ryot, and one great object of the new 

 agricultural associations is to enable a peasant to buy 

 good cattle on decent terms, instead of any sort of 

 cattle at prices 50 per cent, above their value. It is 

 common for a man to pay 700 francs for a pair of 

 cattle which would cost only 500 for cash. "Too 

 often," says one authority, " the peasant works not for 

 himself, but solely for the profit of the usurer who has 

 made him an advance ; his cattle are bred and fattened, 



