WORKING CREDIT FOR FARMERS. 223 



a boast of by the latter, when the Board of Agriculture 

 very unnecessarily approached them to obtain a promise 

 of their willingness to loan money to agricultural credit 

 societies still to be formed. The bankers questioned 

 reported that they had never before had so many farmers 

 on their books as borrowers. That, however, so far from 

 proving a command of available productive credit, indicates 

 rather the exact reverse. For that money is not likcl}/ 

 to have been borrowed for productive purposes. And it 

 was no part of the bargain that it should be. It was given 

 not for what it would produce but for what the borrower 

 was supposed to be still worth. What is satisfactory 

 about the matter is that it shows that bankers have once 

 more taken to practising such credit rather more freely. 

 For it had become very scarce. But it deserves mention 

 that it is not stated what is the security demanded in such 

 cases, which is of course a factor of importance. There is 

 no reproach to be levelled against our great banking corpo- 

 rations for not supplying farmers with personal credit as 

 freely as did the private bankers. Obviously the Board of 

 a great Joint Stock bank, sitting in London, has not any- 

 thing like the same power of appraising the credit value 

 of a customer in the country that the whilom private banker 

 possessed ; and together with the accumulation of large 

 masses of money its aim in business had also taken a rather 

 different turn. 



Generally speaking, of course, it may be assumed that a 

 substantial man, whether he be a farmer or belong to some 

 other calling, will always be able to obtain credit, which in 

 his case is given on the strength of the knowledge that he 

 is substantial and also trustworth}'. That is however not 

 altogether the sort of credit that other callings are in enjoy- 

 ment of, that we are now in quest of and that we need to 

 put Agriculture upon its legs. It does not correspond to 

 the business credit upon which men in commerce and manu- 

 facture build up their business, the credit obtained, not as 

 the result of possessions previously secured, but as a means 

 of enabling the borrower to earn those possessions by its 

 use. In any case it cannot help the small and strugghng 



