zones, with "pits" and "exchanges" which should embrace all the important trading centers within the domain of the United States? Is there a way to do this?

I believe there is. Let the American tobacco-growers' organization join hands with the other agricultural organizations in the United States for the appointment of a national committee. Let this committee, in conjunction with the United States Department of Agriculture, make a careful and intelligent study of the German Landwirtschaftsrat system, with a view to its adaptation and adoption in the United States. This would give the American farmer what the farmers of Germany have a national council of agriculture, semiofficial in character, with power of initiative on economic lines. When once this national council of agriculture, this American adaptation of the landwirtschaftsrat, would be established, it would afford a basis for economic development. It would, in the first place, afford the American farmer an opportunity to evolve a system of rural credit suited to his needs, a system like that of the German landschaft (see pp. 351-364 and 381-389 of S. Doc. No. 214), which could be made to provide him with money on long-time mortgages at approximately the same rate of interest paid on Government bonds. Through this national council the farmer would be able to ward off any mere bankers' schemes of rural credit, such as those now pending in Congress and in State legislatures. The farmers would then learn that they can get money without going anywhere near bankers and without themselves becoming bankers; that they can get it the same as the farmer does in Germany under the landschaft system. Witd this money the American farmers need no longer be subject to the trust; they could then become the great American trust themselves, just as the German farmers are in Germany and the Danish farmers in Denmark. With this money the farmers could then open their own "pits" and "exchanges" in the various parts of the United States. In fact under the proposed national council of agriculture the farmers of America would have three temples. The first would be their church, the second would be their cooperative union hall, and the third would be their "pit," their "exchange."

In these "pits" and "exchanges," run by the farmers' cooperative unions under the auspices of the national council of agriculture, all the different kinds of farm produce could be put on sale at different hours in the day or week. There would be a time for the sale of potatoes and other root crops; a time for that of fruits; a time for tobaccos; a time for cereals; a time for cotton, wool, flax, and hides; a time for dairy products and forage; a time for live stock and poultry. Thus every hour in the day these "pits" and "exchanges" would be to the agricultural interests of America what the heart is to the human body.

And now, finally, it should be understood that the tobacco question is not an isolated case; that the complaint of the tobacco planter is the complaint of the American farmer; that he is the "under dog" lying prostrate under the heel of the trust.

The European farmer has succeeded in kicking this trust aside once and for all, as the American farmer can see if he will but patiently read through the important features in the 916-page book of evidence gathered by the American commission and printed by Congress (S. Doc. No. 214). And here let it be said that whatever opinion may be

entertained as to the value of the commission, this should not be allowed to bias judgment as to the value of this book, which, it should be remembered, consists in the main of statements by authoritative experts given under Government auspices in the countries visited.

A careful reading of this book will show the American farmer that he has come to the parting of the ways; that he must either remain where he is and be eaten up by the trusts, or go ahead on progressive economic lines as the European farmer has done, and by pushing aside the buying trusts take his rightful place as the selling trusts for the distribution of his own products

The difficulties the American tobacco planter labors under are substantially the difficulties inherent to the lack of organization för economic purposes of the American farmers generally. The American farmer has yet to learn that he is living in an age of industrial cooperation, a lesson which has been learned and applied by labor, by commerce, by finance; a lesson which has especially been mastered by the farmers of Europe. Like the ostrich, the American farmer hides his face from the light and says there is no cooperation. It is high time that he gathered himself together; it is high time that he realizes that it is just as futile for him to remain outside the influences which govern his age as it would be for him to vote himself outside of the influences of the law of gravitation.

The remedy that will apply to the American tobacco planters' difficulties will apply substantially to the American farmers as a whole. This remedy consists, first of all, in the adaptation and adoption of the German Landwirtschaftsrat in the United States in the establishment of a national council of agriculture. Let the American tobacco planter work for the national council of agriculture, and, when once this is established, the other essentials will necessarily follow in due This and this only will free American agriculture once and for all from its servitude to the now omnipotent buying trusts. DAVID LUBIN, Delegate of the United States, International Institute of Agriculture, Rome, Italy.

course.

2d Session

SENATE

No. 580

PEOPLE'S BANKS IN NORTH AMERICA

A SURVEY

OF THE

DESJARDINS SYSTEM OF COOPERATIVE BANKS IN CANADA AND THEIR ADOPTION IN

THE UNITED STATES

BY

H. MICHELl, m. a.

Department of Politic and Economic Science, Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario

PRESENTED BY MR. FLETCHER

JUNE 26, 1914.-Referred to the Committee on Printing

WASHINGTON

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

REPORTED BY MR. FLETCHER.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,

September 5 (calendar day, September 12), 1914.

Resolved, That the manuscript submitted by Mr. Fletcher on June 26, 1914, entitled "The people's banks in North America," by H. Michell, M. A., department of politic and economic science, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, be printed as a Senate document.

Attest:

JAMES M. BAKER,
Secretary,

By H. M. ROSE,
Assistant Secretary.

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL.

SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL CONGRESS,

Hon. DUNCAN U. FLETCHER,

Washington, D. C., June 12, 1914.

United States Senate, Washington, D. C.

MY DEAR SENATOR FLETCHER: The Southern Commercial Congress assembled the American commission with which was associated the United States commission appointed by President Wilson for the study of agricultural cooperation in European countries. These commissions have submitted their reports that have been published as Senate documents.

A production has been prepared by H. Michell, M. A., department of politic and economic sicence, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, and addressed to the Southern Commercial Congress on the subject, "People's banks in North America." The manuscript is a survey of the Desjardins system of cooperative banks in Canada and their adoption in the United States.

In view of the scarcity of material available on this important subject as to achievements in North America, I have the honor to submit the article to you and urge that it be presented to the Senate of the United States for publication.

Respectfully,

CLARENCE J. OWENS,
Managing Director.

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