Fulton County tribune. (Wauseon, Ohio) 1883-1925, 1914-03-13

IL assisted by good supervision and
inspection, can be at once good
business man and kindly neighbor.
Here in this Foynes society is COM
mittee of business men who are will
ing to come together to consider loans
of the most trivial amounts and to
meet periodically and discuss meth
DDS of bringing more money into the
little community to be loaned out to
those needing it. They are ready to
go over all the petty troubles and
trials and misfortunes of the unfor-
tunate borrower, to discuss ways and
means of helping the weaker brother
pay his debt. These men are in fact
bearing the burdens of an entire
community so far as the small bus1-
ness difficulties are concerned. All
are most anxious to see every farmer
able to buy good seed, good manures,
good stock and to improve the posi-
tion Of himself and family, yet equally
anxious to protect the funds of the
bank
It is a question WHETHER the board
of directors of any big financial house
who sit in richly upholstered chairs
around Circassian walnut tables ever
more efficiently discharged the du-
ties of bank directors than have this
group of mud-bespattered farmers sit
ting in cheap wooden chairs around
this pine table
One Man One Vote.
This cooperative banking associa-
ton at Foynes is under the absolute
control of the farmers hereabouts.
This control is not centered in few
rich members who have furnished the
capital. Each member has one vote,
irrespective of his investment. There
is no massing of votes in the hands
of those who have the most money in
the concern. Here men carry the
voting power, not money. The coop
erative idea is essentially democratic.
Experience shows that no other sys-
tenn succeeds. For one man to pos
sess twice as much power as his
neighbor renders an association no
longer truly cooperative. Before this
principle was recognized, when one
or two members might out-vote 100
members, more than one cooperative
effort went to pieces.
The average farmer member is poor.
He has never handled money. He
may never have made a loan. He
knows nothing of banking forms, of
bank bookkeeping, of the legal rights
of borrowers or of lenders. He Is an
easy-going, good-hearted Irishman.
Men of this type control and make up
the loan committee, which must pass
on loans, enforce collections and de-
eide on all minor questions relating
to the policy of the organization. How
can such members be good bankers?
In America it takes shrewd, we'll
trained business men to make a bank
succeed. They know more of bank
accounting than do accountants. They
know as much of banking law as do
lawyers. They have by long study
of their subject become familiar with
every phase of it. How then can these
happy -go-ldcky Irish farmers become
successful financiers?
The answer, or the biggest part of
the answer, is that the Irish Agricul-
tural Organization society has a
beneficent supervision over them and
furnishes them with the qualifications
which they lack.
Interview With Doctor Mccarthy.
Notwithstanding all that co-opera-
tive credit has done for Ireland, it
still has lack, says Doctor Mccarthy.
The small tenant farmer has had am
pie provisions made for him by the
government for the purchase of his
home. Small farmers, through credit
associations, have ample opportunities
Of obtaining small loans for produc-
tive purposes. What Ireland most
needs now, however, is a system of
loans byswhich the owners of the larg-
er estates may secure funds with
which to make their estate productive
and profitable. The owners of the big
estates are all in need of money. They
are as poor, in sense, as the poorest
tenant farmers. The worst farming
in all Ireland is sometimes found upon
tuo idi6SoI coldeCo- 1A0o0 ldl uiCi .
find it difficult to obtain large loan,
at low rate Of interest, on long time,
with privileges of amortization pay
ments, such as will enable them to use
money for the gradual upbuilding of
the productiveness of the farm. If it
were possible here to borrow money
upon mortgages Of this description as
it is in Germany, in France, in Italy
and even in Russia, the rural portions
of Ireland would advance much more
rapidly. America can safely adopt
the Irish system of short time person
al loans, but we should have in addi-
ton something like the German Land
schaften banks for larger long time
loans.