A. The State loans to the regional office without interest; the regional office loans to the local office at 3 per cent.: the local office loans to the farmers at between 3-1/2 and 4 per cent.; in the northern region at 3-1/2 per cent.; in the southern at 4 per cent.
Q. Under what conditions?
A. The farmer who wants to borrow from the local office draws a bill upon himself, takes it to the local office, and the board of administration there considers it. If they approve it, the president signs it—and it has then two signatures—and then sends it to the regional office; if the regional office has plenty of money they will lend the money directly; if not, the president of the regional office signs it—it has then three signatures and is bankable paper—and it is taken to the Bank of France. During the crisis in the south of France last year in the wine-growing region at Montpellier, the centre, the regional office had one million capital; the Government then added 4; that made 5, but they lent at that office all together 16 millions, and the difference was obtained from the Bank of France in the way described by using paper with three signatures. Before the founding of these agricultural societies it would have been difficult for a farmer to obtain the three signatures necessary to borrow from the Bank of France, and what happened last year in the south of France could not have occurred before the organisation of the Crédit Agricole. It should be added there has never been one cent lost by the Crédit Agricole.
Q. Are all loans made to members?
A. Yes; exclusively to members.
Q. Who can become a member?
A. Farmers; agricultural workmen are excluded. We do not lend to people for nourishment to support themselves. We lend them money to increase the production of the land.
Q. Must a man have some share in the crops?
A. We lend money to buy a horse, a cow, or to buy fertilizer. We will lend to a man who rents a farm, but does not own it, to buy machinery, cattle, etc., but we will not lend to a man who wants to borrow the money for his own consumption; we do not lend money for a man to buy a coat, for instance. These local offices are in communities where everybody knows everybody else, and they always ask what the man wants to borrow for, and if he says he wants 400 francs to buy a cow, they watch him, and if four or five days afterwards he has no cow, they know it. As the liability is without limit, the other members of the locality would be responsible. At the beginning the farmers were afraid of unlimited liability, and on that account they had to make it limited, but now, in all of the new offices, the responsibility is unlimited.