138 



of the land of large properties- 



In the ordinary way, banks do not undertake ad- 

 vances on lands; owing to the little remunerative nature 

 of these loans, the business is the last to appeal to banks. 

 Here, I might observe that it has not been seen fit to 

 add the ordinary business of banking to the "Banco 

 Hipotecario", which, if it had been practical, would 

 surely have acquired the right to undertake such by 

 now., 



As I have remarked before, in most cases the giv- 

 ing of money on mortgage does not "foment" the di- 

 viding up of land. That "perfect" security which 

 seems associated in the minds of many regarding mo- 

 ney lent on mortgage is not established other than in 

 theory . 



In regard to colonisation, if it is intended that the 

 "agricola" bank shall advance the capital necessary to 

 initiate new r agricultural exploitations,, first there are 

 the claims of those who are already in existence to con- 

 sider, and in regard to the possibility of advancing ca- 

 pital to farmers, it is sufficient to remark that as far 

 as cereal farm exploitations are concerned, the 70,000 

 odd chacras already existing represent at a lowest com- 

 putation an inversion of at least 100 million pesos ca- 

 pital . 



The final result of attempting to finance farming 

 by State aid has been disaster to both parties; in one 

 hundred years of such experiments there has not been 

 one solitary case of real financial success recorded 

 which could not have been achieved equally without 

 such aid. 



The enormous amount of money required to 

 achieve anj'thing permanent worth mentioning, places 

 such projects beyond the scope of any one bank. State 

 aided or otherwise. 



With regard to the ideas of the influence which 

 such a bank would have on co-operative societies, it is 

 often forgotten that all banks are co-operative socie- 

 ties more or less, and the excellent results which are 

 often attributed to co-operative societies such as the 

 above cited Raffeisen, etc., are attained by methods quite 

 divergent from those associated with successful banking. 

 The true objects of co-operative institutions are not 

 banks, although banking plays its part in their trans- 

 actions, they are more adjuncts to banks than ought 

 else, and it is very hard to see where a bank can enter 

 into their formation, or effectively help the farmer, 

 until the farmer is in a position to help himself. That 



