RURAL IRELAND.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12253, 1 June 1914, Page 5

RURAL IRELAND.

MORTGAGE INDEBTEDNESS INCREASING. Times and Sydney Sun Services. [By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.] (Pee Press Association.) Loudon, May 30. A report by a committee of the Department of Agriculture ou technical education in Iceland states that the mortgage indebtedness of Irish land is probably increasing by £2,000,000 annually. The number of money-lenders has greatly increased, whilst the "gombeen" man has almost disappeared, but an injurious amount of long credit with shops has been found in various districts, much of it for feeding stuffs which the farmer could himself grow. The savings of the rural classes, amounting to many millions, have been withdrawn from productive use locally and transferred to investments in London.

The report adds that assistance to the economic progress of rural Ireland would be possible if only a part of this money was available for lending to sir all farmers.