WORKING CREDIT FOR FARMERS. 235 



bold departure from fact. Conclusively to prove their 

 qualifications for acting as judges on such a matter, the 

 Committee went out of their way to afhrm, what would 

 certainly have surprised Messrs Byles and Chalmers, the 

 well-known text writers on bills of exchange, that " the 

 main difference between ordinary mercantile credit and agri- 

 cultural credit is that, while the former is given against 

 specific securities, the latter, when given at all" (please note 

 the admission), " is purely personal." " The Committee could 

 not see their way to recommend anything of the kind." 

 When challenged upon their verdict — of which by this time 

 the three wise men of Gotham must be heartily ashamed — 

 the chairman wrote that it had been " unanimously " adopted 

 by the Chamber, and rode off on a cheap jeer — he himself 

 being an American naturalised in England — at " highly 

 intelligent foreigners." None of Schulze-Delitzsch, Luz- 

 zatti or Raiffeisen Co-operation for him ! Let " Mr. Yer- 

 burgh, Mr. Channing, Mr. Jeffreys, and Professor Long " 

 — these are the gentlemen named in his letter — devise 

 something " English " ! Well, they have not done so. 

 And, seeing that INIr. Yerburgh, as President of the Agri- 

 cultural Banks Association, was pledged to the furtherance 

 of that " foreign " credit banking, and that Mr. Channing 

 numbered among its most fervent supporters, it was not 

 likely that either of them would attempt the task. The 

 other two gentlemen appear to have been content to leave 

 the matter alone. The Secretary, more discreetly, depre- 

 cated further discussion, which would, he said, " not be 

 convenient." Doubtless it would not. And the Professor, 

 most discreet of all, held his learned tongue. 



However, the Government in its turn bungled just as 

 badly. One would have thought that in the course of the 

 inquiry by Royal Commission in 1894 the subject would 

 have interested the founder of the Board of Agriculture. 

 Nevertheless, he promptly walked out, seemingly in 

 great haste, as soon as the first witness on it was called. 

 The late Lord Wenlock's BiU of 1908, having been assented 

 to by the Government in second reading, was fiercely 

 assailed in Committee by Lord Denman, then a Junior 



