248 PEASANT PROPRIETARY AT HOME 



encourage him by saying they will make the terms 

 ' easy ' as regards the amount to be paid down, and the 

 conditions of the mortgage. Whether or not the 

 candidate for proprietorship is really a qualified agricul- 

 turist, likely to work his land to advantage, is a matter 

 of detail with which the lawyers have little or no direct 

 concern, even if they were really qualified to form an 

 opinion thereon. It is sufficient for them that the man 

 wants to buy, and can raise the stipulated sum. If he 

 should give up in the course of a few years, there will 

 be a further transfer and more fees. 



In the circumstances it may well be that the ' pro- 

 prietor ' starts operations on his mortgaged holding 

 with practically no working capital. Almost every 

 penny he possesses will have been either sunk in the 

 initial payment for ownership or paid away for legal 

 expenses. What happens next is that he gets into 

 debt with the wholesale traders or their agents. He 

 expects them to supply him with everything he wants 

 at the beginning of the season, and to wait for their 

 money until harvest time, when he will pay them if 

 he can. Should one trader demur, he withdraws his 

 custom and goes to another. The trader is thus forced 

 to become, in effect, the cultivator's money-lender, with 

 this difference : that what is lent is represented by seeds, 

 manures, implements, etc., instead of hard cash. Such 

 transactions go by the courtesy title of ' long credit,' 

 but they may represent not only money-lending, but 

 money-lending in a particularly bad form. If the 

 small holder received hard cash he would know what 

 he got, and what rate of interest he had to pay. But 

 the trader to whom he resorts is, at least, in a position 

 not only to charge him for the goods supplied a price 

 which would include a money-lender's rate of interest, 

 but also to palm off on to him if he still remains an 



