CO-OPERATIVE CREDIT ASSOCIATIONS. 135 



that the difficulty of insufficient capital will probably be a transitory one. 

 It is clear, however, that the time will come when, with the extension of 

 these small local banks working within a very narrow area, the need of 

 some sort of central credit organisation to serve both as a distributor, on 

 reasonable terms, of capital to the local credit societies and as a kind of 

 clearing house for these societies inter se, will become a pressing one. This 

 has been the case in continental countries, and the experience will probably 

 be repeated here. Of course outside the sphere of operation of these Raif- 

 feisen credit associations — which deal only, and by their nature can only 

 deal, with a small though, in Ireland, a very important part of the whole field 

 of agricultural credit — there is room and opportunity for organising (again 

 on continental models) agricultural credit more thoroughly, with a view to 

 bringing within the reach of all those engaged in the greatest industry of 

 this country, credit facilities on terms not more onerous (and this involves 

 the question of the duration of the loan, no less than of the interest on it) 

 than those on which a solvent manufacturer or merchant can now secure 

 capital to develop his business. 



It will be noticed that practically all the capital got on loans is employed,, 

 in the cases above quoted, for stocking the land. Most of the borrowers are 

 small farmers on whose holdings — averaging from lo to 30 acres — there is 

 generally a disproportionally large percentage of more or less rough pasture. 

 The credit faciUties offered by the local banks enable them to buy young 

 stock for this grazing, or an almost equally important boon, to hold over any 

 stock they may have until such time as prices turn in their favour. The 

 great " profit " that is the usual outcome of the use of this " lucky money "' 

 — ranging, it is stated on good authority, from 25 per cent, to 150 per cent. 

 — arises, of course, not from the use of the money alone, but from its employ- 

 ment on land and with labour which, before the addition of such capital, 

 were, to all intents and purposes, valueless. In fact the value and the need 

 of capital in the case of these poor landholders (on such terms of interest 

 and for such a period as they can afford to borrow it) are emphasised by the 

 quite abnormal returns (" profits ") which in a very large number of cases 

 are gratefully recorded. 



Some of the loans, it will have been observed, are sought for by migratory 

 labourers, and repaid out of monies earned in England or Scotland. It is, 

 perhaps, worth pointing out that though the " migrants " go annually to 

 Great Britain in search of work, many of their own farms would profitably 

 respond, were capital available, to a very considerable amount of intelli- 

 gently applied labour. The reason for this anomaly seems to be that (as I 

 took occasion to point out in my Report on Migratory Labourers for 1900), 

 there is no distinct class of agricultural labourers in these districts, and 

 hired labour is consequently very difficult to obtain even were the capital at 

 hand to pay for it, while, at the same time, the labour of an occupier without 

 help from his family, would not generally suffice to work his holding profi- 

 tably on a system of even moderately inextensive culture, not to speak of his 

 inability to wait over a season for the reward of his industry. The lack of 

 capital, which is the chief want, turns the balance of advantage in favour 

 of migration. A case in point will illustrate what I mean : " A. B., in the 

 district of Burren (Co. Mayo), has a holding of eight acres of tillage land 

 and a large run of mountain grazing, but is compelled to go to England 

 every year to earn money to meet his calls. He would, according to his 

 own statement, be better off if he could stay at home and work his farm. 



