WORK DONE OR PROJECTED 229 



Particularly, it has been suggested, might the principle 

 of a limitation in the liability of members be found to be 

 applicable to those places which are not strictly rural, and 

 in which, owing to a changing population, it is almost 

 impossible to insist on one man pledging himself, with no 

 limit, for the default of a neighbour about whom, perhaps, 

 he knows practically nothing. 



The soundness of liability limited by guarantee has in the 

 case of agricultural credit societies, working under conditions 

 especially favourable thereto, been established in Germany, 

 where the advantages of the dual system have been greatly 

 appreciated ; and a like alternative might be beneficial to 

 the movement here. 



A NATIONAL PROBLEM. 



In one respect the position may be considered to have 

 been rendered worse rather than better by recent changes 

 in land tenure. 



In former days the losses due to bad weather or deficient 

 harvest fell to a material extent on the landlords, who met 

 the situation by granting reductions of rent, or otherwise 

 giving practical assistance to their distressed tenants, 

 helping, in the aggregate, thousands of such tenants to keep 

 going until better times came round again. 



To-day the whole tendency is in the direction of abolishing 

 the individual landlord, and substituting for him either a 

 County Council or peasant proprietary. With the political 

 or other advantages claimed for either or both of these 

 systems we have here no 'concern ; but each of them offers 

 considerations which have a direct bearing on the question 

 of agricultural credit. 



As a public body, a County Council cannot be expected 

 to be so sympathetic towards its small-holding tenants 

 as the landlord whose place it is taking. Dealing as it 

 does with public money, it has to consider that any special 

 concessions granted to these tenants might have to be 

 made good by the general body of the ratepayers, so that 



