6o LAND SETTLEMENT & EDUCATION 



a day, one might walk along the country roads and 

 pick out the fields of the farmers and small holders 

 who were members of the credit bank. 



Our Joint-stock Banks do not meet the need of 

 the times as far as Agriculture is concerned, for it is 

 to-day more difficult for the farmer to borrow money 

 than for any other section of the community. In 

 olden days when private banks did the banking 

 business of the rural districts they were always 

 ready to advance money to a capable cultivator 

 of the soil, on his personal character as the security. 

 But now the local branch of the Joint-stock Bank 

 is principally an agency for collecting funds and 

 transmitting them to the Head Office in London, 

 whence they are lent to build " railways in Peru," 

 or maybe to finance a big irrigation or reclamation 

 scheme abroad, so that in due course our farmers 

 shall have to meet still fiercer competition in their 

 own markets. 



People who are not acquainted with the aspects 

 of rural credit are fearful of the risks which they 

 anticipate in providing the small man on the land 

 with credit, but for my part I feel strongly that it is 

 perfectly safe, especially on colonies, to advance 

 80 per cent or even 90 per cent of the working capital 

 needed to start the really competent man on his 

 holding. That care will have to be taken in the 

 granting of loans is an elementary precaution which 

 is nowhere omitted, because the tendency of credit 

 is to convert itself into capital, and in the pursuit 

 of its aim it surrounds itself with safeguards which 

 render a loss almost impossible.^ 



Unfortunately, the really competent food pro- 

 ducer without capital has in the absence of an 



^ See Appendix, p. 129 fi. 



