A FULL REWARD FOR THE TILLER. 401 



societies, no liability weighing upon borrowers beyond the 

 actual amount of their debt. There are no summary 

 proceedings — which might appear arbitrary — in waiting 

 for them. There is no limitation of district. The various 

 organisations adjust the measure of their work to that of 

 their capital. In landschaften and imitation landschaften, 

 where there is no share capital, notably in Denmark, 

 special arrangements have proved necessary for carrying 

 over liability entered into for one series of loans to another, 

 so as to give the new series a start at non-beneficiaries' 

 risk. Where there is capital, as for instance in the co-opera- 

 tive landwirtschaftlicher Kreditverein im Komgreich Sachsen, 

 it has proved possible on an economy effected in the working 

 of the society, to confer a signal benefit upon borrowers 

 by reducing the rate of interest on mortgages already actually 

 issued. That is quite unknown in landschaften. Loans 

 are " amortisable," and readily saleable bonds are issued 

 by Mortgage Credit Companies and Co-operative Mortgage 

 Credit Societies just the same as under the landschaft. 



One cannot help thinking that on new ground, especially 

 where Prussian bureaucratic methods are unknown, ordinary 

 Joint Stock Companies, working with their own capital, 

 give better promise of answering their purposes than 

 organisations of landlords, who may know much or know 

 little of the business, pledging their liability. 



In the various shapes adopted, the various mortgage 

 credit organisations here spoken of have proved a signal 

 benefit to Agriculture. They have liberated mortgage 

 credit from its ancient hampering shackles, and carried 

 it into the realm of free transactions. Millions and millions 

 of money have been raised by their means in a simple, easy 

 and thoroughly legitimate way, pressing only very lightly 

 — only in the shape of a duty to pay interest and sinking 

 fund — on the shoulders of borrowers, who have no notice 

 to repay to dread, but may, if they choose, themselves 

 give notice at any time and pay off at their own convenience. 

 Enormous sums of money have in this manner been made 

 available for agricultural improvements. And a negotiable 

 security has been created and set current which is greatly 



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