DANGER OF FACILE CREDIT 109 



them to pay the interest on their debts." " Credit is 

 too frequently demanded and too easily granted " (St. 

 Gall), with the results of trade disturbances (Reports 

 of U.S.A. Consuls on the Credit and Trade Systems 

 of Europe, 1884). 



* In Norway, where nearly the whole land mortgage 

 debt is held by banks, it is estimated that only from 

 one-sixteenth to one-fifth of the value of the lands 

 remains to the proprietors. 



* In Sweden, where peasants are notoriously thrifty, 

 the second of the three chief causes to which the great 

 increase of indebtedness is attributed is the increase 

 in the number of the country banks and the greater 

 facilities thereby afforded for borrowing, 



' In Germany it has already been shown that the 

 landed debt is increasing at enormous rates, to a great 

 extent no doubt on urban property, but also largely 

 on farms. In Silesia, the original home of land banks, 

 the American Consul considers that at least seven- 

 eighths of all farms, large or small, are mortgaged to 

 a greater or less extent. The Consul at Dresden 

 (Saxony), the headquarters of a very successful land 

 bank, says that " it is rare to find a piece of property, 

 house or landed, free of mortgage." At Aix the Consul 

 says that a very large majority of the real estate is 

 burdened with mortgages, and judgments are in no 

 way conspicuous by their absence. In Bavaria, where 

 money is chiefly advanced by banks, " rural estates 

 are often much encumbered, and eventually sold by 

 auction." In Bavaria, with 681,521 farms, no less than 

 6,686 were subject to forced sale by courts in 1880. 



' Here, then, may be seen the results, not of usur}^, 

 but of its equally dangerous opposite, facile credit. 

 Usury provided a moderate amount of capital at bur- 

 densome rates ; banking credit has substituted, in the 

 same countries, capital at cheap rates, but has increased 

 the mass of the burden. So far from banking, even 

 on the most honourable and careful lines — e.g., those 



