1 Ava., 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 147 
lines of the agricultural credit were so extended as to embrace the countries of Europe 
under the title of “General European Agricultural Credit.” I may-state that, once 
these circles and committees were duly constituted, the various Governments recognised 
the issue of their notes, which became legal tender. This, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, 
was the crowning of the edifice of agricultural credit, the final triumph of such a bene- 
ficial principle of political and socia economy. It was in 1870 that this principle was 
asserted at a general congress of a riculturists ; and economists, bankers, and Crown 
Ministers were present. ‘The emt reader of this paper, the son of a farmer, was 
then lecturing on political and industrial economy at a technical institute, and was 
chosen as delegate to the congress. Although I was then very young—in fact, the 
youngest of all the delegates—I fought hard and successfully for the principle, and 
with me also fought vigorously my colleague, the eminent economist of world-wide 
fame, Professor Ludgi Luzvati, who, I am delighted to say, was, four months ago, elected 
member of the Institute of France in place of the late Mr. Gladstone. So it is evident 
from this appointment that the civilised world and the body of scientists consider agri- 
culture and agricultural credit as worthy of the highest consideration by so honouring 
their chief apostles. This has been more keenly appreciated in etn where 
the agricultural class is almost nine-tenths of the whole population, and there are 
over 37,000,000 freehold farms, and by whose Government, five years ago, a second 
order of knighthood was instituted, called the “ Agricultural Merit,” on a par with the 
“ Legion ee tionoue Now, gentlemen, if all this has been accomplished in Europe 
by the European farmers, why cannot the same be done in Australia by the Australian 
farmers? After visiting the principal parts of Europe to see how the system was 
progressing, I crossed the line 24 years ago, and came to Queensland with the only 
purpose in view to see the system also established in Australia. Twenty years ago [ 
was advocating it in Victoria, where only lately it has been established, but on very 
narrow bases. In Queensland I have been advocating it ever since my arrival in 1875, 
together with central sugar-mills and central mineral-mills. The former we haye at 
last, but in my opinion rather late and upon imperfect bases. Last year I forwarded to the 
Government a copy of the scheme formulated as a rough sketch of a Bill, a copy of which 
I have now in my hand to be laid on the table at the disposal of the members of this 
Conference, so that it may be read and recorded among the documents. It consists of 
thirty-six short clauses. Almost ina similar form I published it 16 years ago in the Towns- 
. ville Daily Bulletin, and in a leading article it was stated that if if were adopted it would 
be more beneficial than MecTwraith’s transcontinental railway. The scheme is on the 
same general basis as the European Agricultural Credit, but’ of course adapted to the 
oan circumstances of land tenure in Queensland. Through it the farmer’s labour 
is, so to say, capitalised or monetised, and it is made patent to the whole com- 
munity, so as to be used by him to still improve his farm. ' The general value of the 
land is not considered, leaving it as a permanent asset of the farmer; hence the bases 
of the scheme are doubly guaranteed and secured, primarily on the improvements and 
crops or the farmer’s. labour, and, secondarily, if necessity should require it, on the 
_ fundamental value of the ground. Through this scheme everyone is enabled to become 
his own landlord, by taking up virgin Crown land, and even old freeholds that are 
encumbered may, by this scheme, be speedily redeemed; so that the scheme is of 
immense benefit to old farmers, old homesteaders, old settlers, and landowners, as well 
as to intending new selectors. I can assure you, gentlemen, that it is sim ly by the aid 
of the agricultural credit that the European farmers can now subsist, and keep them- 
selves quite independent of commercial banks, money-lenders, and so on. Tf banks 
can issue notes on the security of small deposits of other people’s money or deeds, why 
cannot we landowners and farmers do the same on the security of our ownland? Our 
own notes, secured on our landed properties, would be substantially guaranteed, and 
a hundred times safer than bank-notes. When we ask a loan from’a money-lender or 
a bank, we have to give them our deeds, and it is on the security of our saute that they 
give us the money—generally.in bank-notes, which in reality are guaranteed by our 
deeds! Therefore, why are we so foolish as to trouble them to hold our deeds an print 
bank-notes for us, and why should we pay very dearly for what in truth is “ our own ’’? 
Should we not, on the contrary, keep our deeds, put them together in our 
association, and on the guarantee of these deeds print and issue our own agricultural 
notes of credit? Would not the public and the mercantile community attach more 
trust and confidence to our notes issued on a specific security of specified deeds of land 
than to notes issued by banks whose business is hinged on goods and chattels more or 
less perishable ? The idea—the principle—is as clear and simple as noonday light. But, 
furthermore, why should we Ry interest for a credit created and sprung from our own 
properties ? Is not this totally absurd and nonsensical? In Europe, of course, the 
farmers carried on the scheme themselves, but in Queensland, where farmers are as yet 
