238 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



legitimate applications from farmers not being forthcoming 

 — because the Government, which cannot do credit business 

 otherwise than mechanically, had prescribed quite unsuit- 

 able terms — the Credit loaned millions away to the Khedive 

 Ismail, from whom of course it never received a penny 

 back. It was, again, the presence of cash for which there 

 was no demand which compelled Gambetta's well-intended 

 Caisse Centrale to abandon its intended popular business 

 and convert itself into an ordinary profit- mongering business 

 bank. There is surely no need to support the thesis by 

 further examples. Res ipsa loquitur. But I may add that 

 there is a whole host of credit institutions formed under 

 the " co-operative " sign that apply it in the manner now 

 so freely advocated in England, of looking out for " money " 

 and for " business " — instead of making sure of " security " 

 — which have come to grief. Shall we not take warning ? 

 The general apathy in respect of Co-operative Credit for 

 farmers shown in this country, its contemptuous pooh- 

 poohing by officers of the Board of Agriculture, by gentle- 

 men like Mr. Leroy Lewis and, under his inspiration, of 

 the Central Chamber of Agriculture, and by the banking 

 interest and writers on finance, contrasts strangely with 

 the keen interest evinced — for good reasons, too — by men 

 and bodies of corresponding position among our kinsmen 

 across the Atlantic, alike in Canada and in the United 

 States. In modern days, it appears, the " wise men," 

 the men of action and initiative, come, not from the East, 

 but from the West. In the United States the interest is 

 most noticeable. The Bankers' Association has taken up 

 the question with great spirit, and the " Banker-Farmer " 

 has become a recognised institution. The " Department 

 of Agriculture," corresponding to our " Board of Agricul- 

 ture," is moving actively in the matter. The late United 

 States Ambassador at Paris, Mr. Myron T. Herrick, himself 

 at the head of an important banking establishment, owned 

 to me, while still at Paris, that one of his reasons for accept- 

 ing the ambassadorship had been the wish to have a good 

 opportunity of studying the practice of co-operative credit 

 for Agriculture established in Europe on the spot, in order 



