249 



Miscellaneous, 



It is believed that the Steamship Companies Irom Liverpool and Hamburg 

 to West Africa, viz.— Messrs. Elder Dempster & Co. and the Woermann Line, will 

 qnote only nominal rates of freight on Exhibits, but definite information on 

 this and other points may be obtained in April to June, 1906, by applying in writing 

 to the Colonial Secretary, Lagos, or to the Commercial Intelligence Officer for 

 Lagos and Southern Nigeria, care of The Crown Agents for the Colonies, 

 AVhitehall Gardens, London, S.W. 



By Order, 



E. A. SPEED, 

 Acting Colonial Secretary and Vice-President of I he 

 Council of the Lagos Agricultural Union. 



Lagos, January 2nd, 1906. 



AGRICULTURAL CREDIT BANKS. 



In agriculture to an even greater degree than in commerce the function 

 of credit seems peculiarly applicable. In trade the purchase and sale of goods 

 is usually effected within comparatively short limits, whereas the growth of crops 

 and the breeding of stock alike require the advance of money and labour for long 

 periods before any return can be expected. Pending the sale of his produce, and the 

 realisation of his profits, the farmer may reasonably require assistance for the 

 pitrchase of fresh stock, manures, feeding stuffs, and implements, or to enable him 

 to take full advantage of his opportunities— to buy in a cheap market or to hold his 

 produce for a rise. The land-owner, also, may need money for improvements, for 

 drainage, for making farm roads, or farm-buildings, etc.— expenditure from which 

 he can only receive a very gradual return in the form of a rent. How to make the 

 capital thus required accessible to agriculturists at a low rate of interest is a problem 

 which has attracted great attention on the Continent during the last half-century, 

 and in many countries it seems to have been satisfactorily solved. 



In Great Britain the' needs of owners of land desirous of carrying out agricul- 

 tural improvements with the aid of borrowed money are met to some extent by the 

 provisions of the Improvement of Land Act, 1899,. and earlier Acts of the same 

 character, which authorise the creation of rent charges over a series of years. Here, 

 however, the security offered, viz., the land, enables the advances to be obtained 

 with much greater facility than where the security partakes of the nature of 

 personal credit. In the latter direction little progress has, as yet, been made in 

 Great Britain, the number of loan banks on a mutual or co-operative basis being 

 insignificant, but in Ireland there has been a considerable development in the past 

 five years. This is largely due to the difference in the conditions prevailing in the 

 two countries. Banks of this character are, no doubt, more suitable to the needs of 

 the small holder than to those of the average tenant farmer, as may be gathered 

 from the fact that it is among the peasant proprietors of the Continent that 

 they have reached their greatest development. The practicability, however, of this 

 form of self-help is undeniable, and in districts where small cultivators are suffi- 

 ciently numerous there seems no reason why one or other of the methods which 

 have proved successful elsewhere could not be adapted to meet local conditions in 

 this country. 



The Labour Gazette for April last contains a note on this subject, in which it 

 is stated that with few exceptions the societies at present in existence (in Ireland, 

 chiefly,) are organised upon what is known as the " Raiffeisen " principle, the main 

 features of which are that no shares are issued, the capital being raised by entrance 



