WHAT CREDIT DOES 6i 



effective system of credit banks little chance of 

 showing what he can do. The few Village Credit 

 Societies which are in existence supply between them 

 barely a drop of the ocean of credit which is re- 

 quired for irrigating and fertilising our 50,000,000 

 acres of agricultural land and raising its productive- 

 ness to the higher standard of other countries — a 

 standard which is higher because their working 

 capital is more than twice the working capital 

 employed on English holdings. 



But if private effort and enterprise prove unable 

 to provide the key to the problem it will devolve 

 upon the State to devise a scheme of credit suitable 

 for English conditions, and supply the greater part 

 of the capital needed for establishing it successfully 

 and permanently. 



As credit is the key to the door which leads to the 

 land, so it is the fountain-head from which every 

 form of co-operative action flows naturally and 

 easily. 



The making of loans for any productive purpose 

 leads to the almost simultaneous establishment of a 

 Trading Department in charge of an expert in 

 buying and selling : loans for the purchase of stock 

 lead to co-operative insurance, and societies for 

 improving the breed (bull- and boar-breeding 

 centres) or the yield (cow-testing societies). Loans 

 for high-class seed and fertilisers necessitate more 

 thorough tillage (with the aid of implements and 

 machinery supplied by IMachinery Hire Societies), 

 formed in due course. 



Further, the tendency of credit to protect 

 itself and render the borrower better able to 



