CHEAP AGRICULTURAL CREDIT. 137 



help to the farmers in the United Kingdom 

 hardly exists. 



Let it be clearly understood that a sound 

 system of Credit Fonder does not involve the 

 loss of any money ; that the Australian (and 

 other) experience shows that in regard alike to 

 helping the man already on the soil as a free- 

 hold farmer to develop his farm, to helping new 

 men on to the soil, and to helping tenants to 

 become owners, an agricultural bank can with 

 careful management avoid loss whilst helping 

 very widely. Let it be premised that there need 

 not be followed in England the penitential 

 generosity which has marked the Irish Land 

 Purchase system ; and the conclusion can safely 

 be come to that it would be a wise act of states- 

 manship to devote at least £100,000,000 of 

 money to Credit Foncier purposes in Great 

 Britain. That sum could be used for three 

 main purposes : for the purchase (voluntarily 

 or compulsorily) of large estates for subdivision 

 into areas of closer settlement ; for enabling 

 tenant farmers to become freeholders ; for 

 helping with cheap credit existing landowners, 



so that they can improve housing and machinery, 



5a 



