AGRICULTURAL CREDITS.

Waikato Times, Volume 109, Issue 18359, 19 June 1931, Page 6

AGRICULTURAL CREDITS.

The special delegation of the League of Nations Financial Committee appointed to draw up a detailed scheme for the organisation of an international agricultural mortgage credit company, mentioned in the cables yesterday, completed a draft scheme which was submitted to the Financial Committee last month. The purpose of the scheme is to alleviate the burdens which weigh on agricultural production in various countries, and to facilitate the improvement in methods of cultivation with a view to diminishing 'the expenses of exploitation, which at present absorb too large a share of profits. This is a project in which tho Commission of Enquiry for European Union has taken a great interest, and a subcommittee of the Commission was appointed to follow the work of thS Financial Committee. This subcommittee held a meeting at Geneva, attended by nineteen European States, including Great Britain. They comprise all the countries which took part in the conference on agricultural credits held in Warsaw last November, as well as the principal capitalexporting countries of Europe. The crK**.man, M. Francois Poncet (Franc*,', in explaining the character of the emphasised the lamentable condition* of agricultural credit in Central and Eastern Europe, where economic life was vitiated by rates of interest which mounted as high as 50 per cent. The sub-committee, in view of the forthcoming meeting of the Financial Committee, confined itself to a general discussion of the major principals upon which -the draft scheme is based —a discussion which, as the report slates, enabled ea'ch representative lo explain the whole proposal to his Government before the meeting of the Commission of Enquiry for European Unity. It drew attention to certain questions, leaving it to the Financial Committee to make the necessary adjustments in the existing lexts. Twelve Governments, comprising the eight countries which took part in the Warsaw conference in 1930 (Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, lloumania, and Yugoslavia), Belgium, France, Greece, and Switzerland, expressed approval of Hie plan in principal. The majority of the other representatives, while not in a position to make formal declarations, expressed sympathy with the gcncial principles on which the scheme is based and with the object for which it is proposed. Under the draft plan, the company will be a limited liability one, constituted under the auspices of the League, and before it can come into operation an international convention will have to he concluded. The authorised capital will ho £10,000,000, but will bb limited at the beginning to a first block ol' £1,000,000. As soon as the company has been founded, a special reserve, equal to the first block of subsciibcd capital, will be furnished by the contract in jr Governments in the foim of advances carrying Interest. The total value of bonds Issued by. the company may not exceed ton times the paid-up capital and special reserve. The funds will be used for making long or medium-term loans to national mortgage credit companies, which will lend this money on first mortgages upon immovable property exploited agriculturally. .It is unllkelv, in any event, that the initial capital"can be subscribed before the next European autumn.