I905-] 



Agricultural Credit Banks. 



97 



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 agricultural improvements with the aid of borrowed 

 money are met to some extent by the provisions of the Im- 

 provement 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 per- 

 sonal 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 sufficiently numerous there seems no 

 reason why one or other of the methods which have proved suc- 

 cessful 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 fees, subscriptions and deposits, 

 and loans bearing a fixed rate of interest ; that the liability 

 of the members is unlimited, every member being jointly and 

 severally responsible for any losses that may be incurred by the 

 society ; that the loans advanced by the societies are for 

 reproductive purposes only, the borrower being required to 



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