442 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 



the next generation are likely to make on it. It is 

 the general rather than the technical training of the 

 future farmer that we are fearful about. 



The same argument applies to the consideration of 

 what is probably the greatest source of loss to our 

 farmers, their bad credit and general indebtedness to 

 dealers. In all parts of the country, when one gets below 

 the surface, one nearly always finds a large proportion, 

 even a majority, of the farmers entirely tied to some 

 trading intermediary who has advanced them money. 

 In some districts it is the cattle salesman or auctioneer, 

 in others the corn and cake dealer, but through one or 

 other of these traders the farmer has to deal, and dares 

 not grumble at either the quality of what he buys or 

 the price of what he sells. The joint-stock banks are 

 often accused of treating the farmer harshly and forcing 

 him into illegitimate borrowings by the small accom- 

 modation they will allow him, but the bank manager 

 knows too well the ramifications of country credit and 

 the difficulty of checking the position of a business that 

 is conducted without books to take again the risks that 

 proved so disastrous a generation ago. As a remedy 

 the creation of special credit banks has often been 

 suggested, with some form of assistance or guarantee 

 from the State ; but if such banks are merely to give 

 credit to farmers, qua farmers, without a commercial 

 consideration of the security involved, they will be used 

 just as long as money can be borrowed from them, but 

 can only collapse and demoralize. On the other hand, 

 real credit banks, consisting of a group of farmers 

 raising money on the collective security of the whole 

 body and lending it to the members on the knowledge 

 they possess of their character, are still outside the 

 range of ideas of our British farmers, and are not likely 

 to be organized until our men have been further imbued 



