Need of Credit Banks 



and the working capital of the industry has 

 shrunk. If the industry is to develop as it 

 should, this loss of working capital must 

 be made good ; so it is clear that many 

 hundreds of millions of pounds could be 

 profitably employed in developing our agri- 

 culture. One of the quickest ways of in- 

 creasing the working capital employed in 

 agriculture would be by establishing a large 

 system of credit banks, or societies for 

 advancing money to farmers. The turn- 

 over of the Raffeisen banks in Germany 

 is no less than ^300,000,000 a year. But 

 in this country we are deplorably slow in 

 devising the machinery required to give the 

 farmer that access to capital which is the 

 first essential in land development. The 

 Small Holdings Act of 1908 provided for 

 the creation of a system of agricultural credit, 

 but practically nothing has been done. 



The question that we have to face is 

 can we, or can we not, produce the 

 bulk of the food we consume within the 

 United Kingdom ? There are still some 

 people who feel that to produce another 

 ;^ 1 00, 000,000 worth of food at home would 



II 



