On Thursday Lord Carrington, speaking at a luncheon given to
the National Farmers' Union, announced that the Prime Minister had approved of a proposal to give improved facilities for the establishment of co-operative credit banks for agriculture. That is excellent news, provided, of course, that the work is judiciously done, and that the scheme is not strangled at birth by red-tape. The moment one gets at close quarters with the " back-to-the-land " problem, or the establishment of small freeholders or small occupiers, one discovers that the essential difficulty is not the obtaining of cheap land but of cheap money. Credit, or facilities for the hiring of capital, are the great desideratum. If one could somehow establish the virtuous and unusurions moneylender, the work of creating the small holder would be immensely facilitated. But, as other countries have proved, this need may be met by the establishment of co-operative credit banks. We dislike the use of Government action and the employment of Government money in our industrial concerns, but we think an exception of a strictly limited and temporary character might safely be made here. In other words, if the pump can be shown to be of the kind that will not work till a little water has been poured into it, but will then freely yield a good supply, we should not object to the Treasury giving the necessary hall-pint.
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