The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1914-02-18
FOR RURAL CREDIT
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO Rec
QGNIZE FARMERS WORTH
WILL PROVIDE FOR Them

Will PROVIDE FOR Them
Germany, France, Austria and Italy
Have Methods Of Lending Money to
| Farmers on Short Time-At Last
America Seems Ready to Help the
Farmers.
There are 100000 farmers in
the United States, and their labors
yield over sS, 100000 to the ma
tional wealth each year. They are
doing this on borrowed capital Of S.
04O, 100000 OF which s510,000,O00
interest is paid annually. That is a
rate of little better than eight and
one-half per cent. The United States
exported 100000 worth Of food
stuffs last year, yet the sum barely
equaled Is per cent. Of the interest
charged on the farmers debt.
Take these same farmers and these
same figures on production and set
them down in Germany. where they
can borrow money for three and one
j half or four per cent, and they will
save almost s250,000.000 in interest
charges each year. The United States,
90 years behind the times, is now
facing the problem that European
farmers solved before the close Of the
last century. President Wilson rec
ognizes its Importance.
New measures for trust regulation
is the task before Congress at pres
ent, but when this is completed the
question Of rural credits will be TAX
en- up and pushed to completion by
the administration. 1t may be mat
ter of year or two before law is
passed and the system is working ef-
fectively, but it is on the way. Two
agricultural credit bills, each the re-
suit of special study Of the situation,
have already been introduced, one in
the House and one in the Senate.
Rural credit is simply the ability
of the farmer to borrow at a reason
able rate Of interest the money he
may need for the cultivation OF his
farm. 1t can be done; Europe has
been showing US this for 20 years.
Howo Cooperation, plus a gentle
push by the government to set the
wheels in motion, and a little super
vision afterwards.
Germany has the most highly or
ganized and perfected agricultural
system in the world. This 1t what 1t
enables the kaiser's domain to do:
Support 67,0O0,0o0 people and pro-
duce 95 per cent. Of the foodstufs
they consume; and this on land cen
turies old and which was never rated
any too good. Credit is the founda-
ton on which this wonderful struc-
ture Of food production has been
| built.
! A German farmer has at his COM
mand two kinds Of credit, short term
money on his personal note-money
loaned him for few months to cover
the expenses Of planting, harvesting,
selling, labor, etc.-and long term
loans on a farm mortgage-money
which he puts into permanent devel-
opment and improvements.
i Cooperative personal credit Is the
secret Of the German agricultural
credit system. They call it the Land
schaften, and it is nothing more than
thousands of small agricultural socie-
ties. These, in turn, are bound to-
|gether in regional societies, and these,
in their turn, in on big, central socie'
ty. Give all these societies, big or
little, many Of the functions Of bank
and you have the German system IN a
nutshell.
\ Germany is doing business OF
5000, 100000 a year in these rural
! societies or banks-as much as the
regular commercial banks are doing
and it is the development of agri'
culture due to the farmers financial
system that has enabled the land
> tillers Of that empire to become the
most scientific agriculturists in the
world.
= France has in lie Credit AgTicole
/, system similar to that Of Germany
> In the 20 years existence Of this socle-
ty it has lent to the faSmers ss6,o0o,'
600 at interest rate Of four per cent
During. this time the annual value OF
the crops in France has increased
s500,000,0OO. Le Credit Agricole l:
composed Of 1000 credit associations
combining 100000 farmers. Anc
France has an area less than that Of
the state of Texas.
Austria also has farm credits dowI
/ to a science. The 5000 rural bank:
: have a membership Of 100000 ane
: do an annual business Of $50, 100000
: Italy has $50 of these banks, and te
e. date they have loaned s2oo,ooo,ooo
!, Belgium boasts of $50 establishment:
5 with a membership Of $4,000 and al
t annual business Of s5,000,00O.
: While foreign nations have beer
perfecting methods of protecting th'
farmer from high interest rates thar
his business will stand, the Unltec
States has done nothing. The resul
Of this throttling of the American
farmer has been the natural one;
falling off Of the country's agricul
tural products.
5 Compare Germans record with tina