30 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Juny, 1901. 
contrary to the general rule—whether their confidence in each other be sufficiently 
established to suffer them to pledge their credit to make good their neighbour's 
eredit. One of the fundamental principles on which the most of agricultural credit 
banks are based is that “all real estate advanced upon must form with like real estate 
in its neighbourhood, similarly pledged, a solidarity of interest, and be jointly 
responsible for a definite total advanced.” ; 
The praiseworthy efforts of the British Government to assist the farmers in. 
Treland are deserving of notice. In Britain, under the Land Purchase Act for 
Treland, Rae is borrowed by the Government at 2% per cent., then loaned to the 
le them to purchase their farms at.3 per cent. The apparent profit of 
tenants to ena 
7 per cent. is for the purpose of paying the necessary expenses. In addition to the 
3 per cent. interest the borrower pays 1 per cent. redemption money, making a total 
ef 4 per cent. In thirty-seven and a-half years’ time the whole of the debt is paid off, 
Money is loaned to the full value of the property. 
It may be interesting just at this point to note the marked difference in the 
ultimate results of dear money and cheap money operating on a farming community. 
Take the Irishman who borrows £500. ‘The land, as security, is worth only £500, and — 
not £1,500—as would possibly be required in Queensland for a £500 loan. The Irishman _ 
pays £20 yearly, and in thirty-seven and a-half years he owns his farm without one 
d 
ariluing of debt, or any further liability for yearly payments. Now, let us take the’ 
Queenslander who borrows £500 on his £1,500 property. The undoubted security has not, — 
during my thirty-four years’ residence here, saved him from big interest charges, and 
10 per cent. has been an average rate. Some may consider this estimate exaggerated, 
but investigation can REGS that it was quite in the ordinary course of business for 15 
r cent. to be charge 
three months’ date. This represents 80 na cent. per annum. ‘Transactions on 
this basis were far from. uncommon. The country butcher, not too prosperous 
himself, had to deal with people in a still less flourishing state. His extra 
halfpenny for booking three halfpenny beef meant 25 per cent. if twelve months’ — 
eredit were given; LOU per cent., if three months; but, as a matter of fact, one month 
was the usual credit term, so that the farmer, in his helpless state for want of the — 
needful to get his supplies on a cash basis, was paying at the rate of 300 per cent. per 
annum. Ten years ago our Goolman Divisional Board were paying 9 per cent., when — 
by the money-lending storekeeper not so very long ago. A 
farmer borrows £25 from a lawyer, and gives in exchange a promissory-note for £30 at _ 
the bank overdraft of £600 was, in a sense, secured by the whole landed estate of the — 
division valued at £500,000. 
After this digression, and taking it for granted, then, that 10 per cent. is conceded — 
as an average rate in the past. let us assume that the Queenslander (who is liable for 
10 per cent.) fails to pay more than 4 per cent., the same as his Irish brothe1, and see — 
what becomes of him. At the end of the first year the tyueenslander owes £50 for 
interest. Let him pay only £20, like the Irishman, and he still owes £30 interest. 
Add this £30 to the amount borrowed, and his debt after expiry of one year stands at 
£530. At the end{of the second year, adding interest on interest, and after paying £20 — 
—which gradually frees the !rishman—the Queenslander is now indebted to the — 
amount of £563. And so he goes on paying yearly all that is required from the — 
Trishman—namely, £20 ; while the excess over and above 4. per cent. is allowed full — 
play, to demonstrate what high rates and compound interest ca accomplish in this — 
glorious land of free and enlightened citizens, where unbridled liberty reigns, and 
where every attempt to relieve the struggling settler is voted ‘ grand moshen yes . 
The payment of £20 yearly frees the Lrishman, and constitutes him a 
the farm he only leased thirty-seven and a-half years ago. The same £20 payments 
from the Queensland farmer leave him at the end of thirt 
with an accumulated debt amounting to £10,891 4s. 6d.!!!" The Queenslander has 
borrowed the same amount as the Irishman; he has paid the same yearly payments ; 
he has given greater security. Result—the Irishman is free; the Queenslander | 
groans under the crushing burden of £10,891 4s. 6d. 
y-seven and a-half years . 
solute owner of © 
1 
Cicero mentions that Cato, being asked what he thought of usury, made no other | 
answer than by asking the person who spoke what he thought of murder. And we 
are asked to submit tamely to the dictum that “cheap money would drive away the 
financial institutions — those institutions which have made Queensland in the past.” 
From all such countries as are infested by 10 per cent. financial institutions, good Lord 
deliver us! 
There are many squatters, farmers. miners, and. various industrial workers in 
Queensland who have been crushed beneath the burden of excessive interest rates, 
and who wonder in a vague way how it all came about when the final crash comes, 
after long years of agonizing struggle against overwhelming odds. They have simply 
