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1 Juxy, 1902.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 45 
improvement to the measure, because if everyone started tinkering with it, it 
might not have passed at all. My association is also down on the programme 
as suggested, that a discussion take place on the need for securing to out- 
going tenants compensation for improvements effected by them during their 
tenure that are, at the expiration of their occupancy, of direct or realisable 
monetary value. This matter of tenant right is an important subject in our 
district, and our association has paid a good deal of attention to it. There are 
a lot of people up there who grow cane on a royalty, and it is thought that if 
they put improvements on their land they should be entitled to some compen- 
sation when they leave it. The farmer does not ask for anything unreasonable, 
but simply that he should be allowed to take away what is his own. It is as 
just and as reasonable that an outgoing tenant should be allowed to take away 
from a farm what he has put on to it as itis for him to take away a team of 
horses. Many of the tenant farmers up there are not living in decent 
dwellings, simply because if they put up a good house they would have to 
leave it to the landlord. Some time ago Dr. Maxwell had a very enthusiastic 
meeting in Mackay, and, upon application for advice, he told them he could 
give them no advice until they had tenant right. It is only fair that farmers 
should be able to insist on the insertion in their leases of some clause to that 
effect. 
Mr. H. A. Tarprenr (Dallarnil) seconded Mr. Mau’s resolution about 
the extension of the provisions of the Agricultural Bank Act. 
Mr. J. E. Deaw (Maryborough) thought that the bank in its present 
form would allow one man to go in for luxuries. Another man, perhaps, who, 
from circumstances over which he had no control, had become involved, would 
require money to carry on his farming operations, but would be unable to 
obtain any assistance from the bank. 
Mr. A. W. Cameron (Maryborough): I have every sympathy with Mr. 
Mau’s proposals and hopes that the bank should be in a position so as to be 
able to render assistance to the old settlers. I am quite satisfied, however, 
that the trustees of the bank, after they get it into working order, and can do 
it on purely commercial principles, will extend its operations so as to include 
those men. But to place in the Bill from the very start that the bank 
was going to relieve all the people who were inyolved and had millstones 
round their necks, would be a rather heayy contract for the Government 
to take on from the jump. We cannot get away from the vital principle 
that the operations of this bank must be conducted on purely commercial 
principles and on as conservative lines as any other financial institution. 
Interest is perhaps a heavy charge on the profits of a man’s farming 
operations, but of course there is a lot of speculative money-lending done, and 
the borrower bears the weight of it. ~The Act that we now have must be 
worked on conservative lines, and its administrators must not consider the 
question of the popularity or otherwise of the measure. Before they lend 
money they should be certain that every penny of it will be paid back or can be 
recovered. Some think that the Government should not inquire into what the 
borrowers are going to do with the money that is advanced to them, but I consider 
that is a most essential point. Before I lent money I should insist on knowing 
what the borrower was going to do with it. He would have to improve his 
farm, and thereby improve his means of obtaining a better livelihood. This 
measure, although successful in other countries, is largely an experiment in 
Queensland, and I am with the Government in hedging it round with such 
precautions as will ensure its success from the start. We do not want any 
failures, and when the Government feels its footing I feel sure that it will * 
enlarge the scope of the bank. Although I use the word “ Government,” I 
hope and believe that the bank will not be under Government control. Noman 
should be, nor do I think he will be, able to go first to the trustees and afterwards 
to the Minister to get the latter to enforce his claim for an advance which the 
trustees were not disposed to give. 
