RURAL CREDITS.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 July 1923, Page 5

RURAL CREDITS.

THE SYSTEM IN CANADA. NO LESSONS FOR AUSTRALIA. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received July 8, 5.5 p.m. New York, July 6. Mr Hall Turner has arrived here after investigating the rural credit organisations of Manitoba, Ontaria and Quebec. He found them elementary in the former two provinces, where the majority of these organisations have only between thirty and a hundred members, and the credits run about twenty thousand dollars per organisation. The farmers depend for longtime credits upon other large banking concerns, and only for small matters upon the rural credits organisations. The investigator feels that Australia which already has long-time credit organisations, cannot draw many lessons from the rural credit societies of Canada. There are, however, interesting developments promising future possibilities which will bear watching. Mr. Hall Turner points out that there have been unusual banking developments in Quebec, where -there are people’s banks, usually affiliated with Catholic concerns having large deposits from the French elements. These banks also advance small loans, which in the total are large, but these banks have a charitable aspect. Thus Australia is -not specially interested, save from a sociological point of view. . Mr. Hall Turner visited u ashington, where he inquired into the Federal Farm Loan Board's work and investigated the Columbia (South , Carolina) branch of -the bank of this organisation, which he found dealt at present chiefly in long-time credits and was only now beginning to advance intermediate credits. The investigator was therefore unable to obtain any new ini'ormation.