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4 THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1913. THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL ATLANTA, »A. f 5 NORTH POBSYTH ST. Entered at the Atlanta Postoffice as Mail Matter of the Second Class. JAMES R. GRAY, President and Editor. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE Twelve months 75c Six months •••••• 40c Three months 25c The Semi-Weekly Journal is published on Tuesday and Friday, and is mailed by the shortest routes for early delivery. It contains news from all over the world, brought- by special leased wires into our office. It has a staff of distinguished contributors, with strong departments of special value to the home and the farm. Agents wanted at every postolfice. Liberal com mission allowed. Outfit free. Write R. R. BRAD LEY, Circulation Manager. The only traveling representatives we have are J. A. Bryan, B. F. Bolton, C. C. Coyle, L. H. Kim brough, W. W. Blackburn and J. W. Brooks. We will be responsible only for money paid to the above named traveling representatives. NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS. The label used for addressing your paper shows the time your subscription expires. By renewing at least two weeks before the date on this label, you insure regular service. In ordering paper changed, be sure to mention you old, as well as your new address. If on a route please give the route number. We cannot enter subscriptions to begin with back numbers. Remittances should be sent by postal order or registered mail. Address all orders and notices fo this de partment to THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, Atlanta, Ga. Our Corn Club Guests. Homes hare been offered thus far for the enter tainment of only about four hundred of the thousand or more Georgia boys who will attend the State Corn Show in Atlanta. There is no doubt that at the telling moment the city’s inborn hospitality will assert itself but it is important that this matter be disposed of without delay. The show is soon to be gin. Plans for welcoming the young visitors and making their sojourn pleasant must be complete before December. It is earnestly to be hoped, there fore, that every Atlanta home which can receive one or more of the boys as gue6ts will promptly notify the Chamber of Commerce. The Corn Show will mean a vast deal to the prog ress and prosperity of all Georgia. Its purpose is to portray and reward the achievements of scientific agriculture and particularly to encourage the boy farmers who are leading the way in this goodly cru sade for a more fruitful and a richer State. Atlanta is fortunate in being the seat of such an exposition and the center of so constructive a move ment. The boy visitors will be representative of the finest spirit and the best traditions of the State. They deserve and will undoubtedly receive a hearty welcome, but preparations for their coming should be completed betimes. Homes for a thousand guests must be assured before the week. Let every Atlanta family that can do so make a gracious response at once. President Finley. The death of President W. W. Finley, of the Southern Railway, is a source of poignant regret the country over and particularly in the South, his- home land, to whose enrichment and upbuilding his rare talents were so generously devoted. Admired every where for his administrative genius and his broad sympathies, he was warmly and personally esteemed in this section where the latest as well as the earliest ideals of his useful life found expression. It was in Southern enterprise that Mr. Finley first showed that keen insight and grasp of affairs which carried him step by step from one of the humblest to one of the highest stations in American railway activities. H^ was pre-eminently a railroad man, trained in all the executive branches of that important service, familiar with its practical needs, responsive to the public’s interests and untainted with the fever of adventurous finance which has too often subordinated to speculative ends the welfare of railroads themselves. On being called to the presidency of the Southern Railway some seven years ago, he brought to his new duties a breadth and freshness of view that soon began to tell wonderfully for the progress of that system and for the development of the country it traversed. He showed from the outset a wholesome determination to make the Southern, first of all, an institution of public service, to identify it with the highest interests of its patrons and to earn for it the respbct and confidence of the people. His policies were those whien now are recognized by all far-sighted business leaders as the wisest and most fruitful a corporation can pursue, policies Which take the community into account and measure up to public service obligations. President Finley was peculiarly interested in the agricultural fortunes of the South. It was largely at his instance that the railroad of which he was the head entered upon its libera' plans for the en couragement of truck farming, cattle raising, co operative marketing and the development of South ern lands through new settlers and new capital. He saw the railroad’s splendid opportunities as an edu cator. Agricultural colleges found him always re sponsive to their efforts in the field of extension work, always ready to aid in tasks of enlightenment and inspiration. In this sphere alone, the value of his service will make his name long honored. President Finley’s attitude toward government, both State and national, was characteristic of his broad-mindedness. In a memorable address delivered in New York some months ago he declared that a railroad’s last thought should be of politics and its first and ever-present thought of its duty to the public; thus, he said, it would move prosperously forward, sustained by its own worth and justified be fore the people. It was this liberal and truly pa triotic purpose that won for him and his adminis tration the country’s cordial good will and that also counted so highly for the growth of the great inter ests under his direction. In Atlanta, where he frequently visited, President Finley had hundreds of friends not only among his co-workers in the railroad world but also among cit izens generally. For this community, he showed keen regard; he had faith in its future, hearty ad miration for its achievements and he did much for the furtherance of its railroad interests. On the personal side, President Finley was a man of singu lar kindliness and quiet magnetism. There was dig nity in* his simple manner and a certain high-bred democracy in the inviting frankness with which he dealt with all men. He thought and labored in the spirit of this new age in which common interests are supplanting selfish privilege; and among all the industrial leaders of the time none was truer than he to that goodly principle. Out of the Wilderness On the Currency Issue. In opening the Senate debate on the banking and currency bill Senator Owen emphasized the signifi cant fact that the differences to be adjusted have to do mainly with matters of detail, while the basic principles of the pending measure are almost unani mously approved. There is no vital point at which Democrats or Republicans are irreconcilable. Both parties are finally agreed upon the chief purposes in view. In its general scope, the Administration’s plan has been accepted by all interests. This is an inestimable gain for the cause of cur rency and banking reform, although the hill itself will not be perfected and passed as soon as its friends had hoped. Within the past six months more has been accomplished toward the solution of this great problem than during decades before. This is the first time, indeed, that any definite and fruit ful step has been taken to rehabilitate our outworn banking and currency system and fit it to the coun try’s present day public needs. Hitherto every sugges tion of reform has aroused hopeless bickering or dis trust. Not until now there has been a common ground on which all the advocates of change could meet and a common path they could all pursue. It is a truly wonderful triumph for the Administra tion that under its leadership this confusing wilder ness has been left behind and the straight highroad tq sure results has. been reached. The Senate committee has submitted two reports, one by the six Democrats and another by the five Republicans and Senator Hitchcock. But neither branch of the committee has proposed amendments that are contrary to the broad principles of the House bill or that should needlessly prolong the dis cussion of the measure. Both Democrats and Re publicans sanction the main purposes of the bill, that is to say the provisions for elastic currency, for regional banks, and for governmental supervision. The central bank idea, which once threatened to cause much discord and delay, has been abandoned by even those Republicans who were its stanchest spokesmen. In these circumstances, it would seem that Sen ator Owen is well advised in predicting that the Sen ate will enact a satisfactory currency bill at an early date, Certain it is, as the Senator declared, that the settlement of this great question is of utmost importance to the business of the country and places upon Congress a peculiarly high responsibility for prompt, patriotic action. New Citizens and New Wealth. “During the last twelve months one hundred and forty thousand Americans settled in Canada. The reason they did so was because they were not informed as to the opportunities in North Car olina. Canada has found out that the way to yet settlers is to get them thinking about Canada as a land of opportunity and great possibilities." Thus the Wilmington (N. C.) Star sets forth the need of organized effort in every Southern State to hold its own population and to attract new settlors and new capital. The upbuilding of a State, as the upbuilding of a business, demands foresight and intel ligent publicity. If North Carolina or Georgia or any neighboring commonwealth had spent a tithe of Can ada’^ energy and resourcefulness in advertising its natural advantages, it would far have outstripped the Dominion in the contest for homeseekers and in vestors, because the natural advantages to be found in this section are incomparably richer than those across the nation’s northern border. In discussing this subject the Manufacturers Record pertinently asks; “How much is North Car olina as a State doing to tell the world of its wealth of resources, of its wide range of climate, from the almost; semi-tropic to the cold of its high mountains, of the almost infinite variety of its agricultural prod ucts, of the limitless opportunities for manufactur ing." In Georgia, this question has not only been asked, it is also being answered with practical enthusiasm by the recently organized State Chamber of Commerce. This admirable institution has set to raise fifty thou sand dollars for making Georgia’s wondrous re sources known throughout America. It has planned a campaign as systematic as Canada’s to center the nation’s thought upon Georgia’s great opportunities. A worthier or more promising enterprise was never undertaken. Its success means more wealth and more prestige for all Georgia. It should have the hearty support of every citizen who is alert to his own inter ests and who loves his State. The Wasps of War. Secretary Daniels aptly calls flying machines “the wasps of war” and predicts that they will play a more and more telling part in naval affairs. Indeed, the usefulness of the aeroplane as an auxiliary to army and fleet has already been well demonstrated. In their campaign against the Turks in Tripoli, the Italians employed with fine effect this means of scouting and reconnoissance. Aeroplanes hovered securely above the encampments of the enemy and obtained information as to the latter’s strength and position that could not otherwise have been learned. In the Balkan war likewise, airships proved dis tinctly valuable. The Bulgars, w- are told, engaged aviators and aeroplanes “to drop fire bombs of Pyroxy lin into the Turkish forts and quarters of Adria- nople.” That the larger nations have abundant faith in the aeroplane as an instrument of war is shown by the great sums of money they are expending for military and naval aviation. It is estimated that for this purpose England has' spent in 1913 more than a million and a half dollars, France some six millions, Germany a million, four hundred and fifty- five thousand and Russia nearly five millions. The United States, however, has devoted only a hundred and forty thousand dollars to this particular sphere of its army and navy. Our army has seventeen flying machines and the navy has four hydroplanes and three “flying boats.” Secretary Daniels urges the importance of increasing our aerial force. The United States naturally spends less than European countries for war preparation; its remoteness and freedom from Old World entan glements afford peculiar safety. It is important, however, that we should avail ourselves of the defen sive advantage which is offered by “the wasps of war” and which all first rate Powers so keenly realize. THE CRY OF THE WEARY BY DR. FRANK CRANE (Copyright, 1913, by Frank Crane.) I stood at one of the gates of the city where the human stream pours out to take the suburban trains. It was evening in the sky, it was evening in the faces around me, it was evening in my heart. The grimness, tenseness, mercilessness of the strife came home to me. I waited in the railway station and saw tired, un- shayen men sitting stolid or asleep from weariness; and faded women, tired, tired, tired, with insistent children tugging at their skirts, little full and strong lives devouring the weak and failing, as wolves eat their wounded. I watched the army of workmen coming out of the factory at the closing hour, carrying dinner pails, walking with heavy, dragging feet, a few laughing as if galvanized for a moment by a joke, but the most of them looking ahead with set eyes. I saw the mother of six when she had put the last into bed, and had sat down and seemed to collapse, as a pack-mule too heavily loaded; and she fell asleep, too tired to undress. I saw the vaudeville actor that 'had been setting a thousand people into roars of laughter; he came from the stage door and his features were drawn with weari ness, and his mouth wore the twisted smile of the heartbroken. I saw the boy, alone in the city, come into his mean hall bedroom, take off his shoes as a prisoner takes off his chains, and sit with his face in his hands, too tired to go to bed. I saw the shopgirl, when she thought no one was looking, sit down for a moment's rest, and her face was gray with exhaustion; all night long she had watched by a sickbed. I saw a slouching man, his coat shiny, his trousers frayed; he walked stealthily into the park late at night, and sat down upon a bench; he spread a newspaper over his knees and in a moment he was sleep. I saw the morally tired: the boy, tired of the isola tion of .decency, drift into the saloon and begin to drink; the girl, tired of the struggle for virtue’s sake, let go and whirl away itno the pool of lost souls. And I saw strong men, betrayed and shamed, grow suddenly tired and sick of life. And I saw old men aftd women tired because hope had left,* enthusiasms faded, disillusion come; and they longed for the rest and peace of death. And I saw the invalid, the broken and wounded, tired, tired, tired. And I saw all 4he failures, those who were not made of stuff stern enough to win in the push and fight fQr success; they stood pitiful, hopeless, pathetic. The whole world seemed to be so tired, tired, tired. . Were it not for its two friends mankind could not endure. Its two friends are sleep and death. BUSINESS AND THE TARIFF By Savoyard Of all the states south of the Mason and Dixon line West Virginia is the most northern in political senti ment and industrial economy. During the big war her population was more loyal than Indiana, or southern Illinois, or New York City. Nay, to the square inch ^here was more copperheadism in Ohio than in West Virginia. And after the war the West Virginian Dem ocracy was bitten by the tarantula of protection. Hen ry G. Davis, like his cousip Gorman, of Maryland, was a protectionist; so was John Kenna. But William L. Wilson, her greatest thinker, was a Democrat without guile and above reproach. Of all that section that was the “solid south”—that is, slave territory in 1860—West Virginia is, and was, the community that was supposed to be favored by a protective tariff above > any sister southern state. She had coal in every hill. Her forests groaned with mer chantable timber. Her glass works turned out mil lionaires by the score. She extracts pig iron from the ore; At one time she was a crank about wool. And those things made West Virginia a reliably Republican state the epoch 1894-1908, both inclusive. * • • A great man was elected president in 1912. He told the people that this country had outgrpwn its baby clothes, that it had arrived at man’s estate, that it is healthy enough and lusty enough to enter upon the bat tle of life with any and all other men the world ver, and the country heakened unto him, believed him, ac cepted him, and followed him. The first thing President Wilson did was to set about a reduction and a reform of the tariff. Or to state it better he immediately and diligently and reso lutely went to work to break the shackles that, for half a century, had hindered the energies of American labor and curtailed the profits of American capital. It is true that protection made a multitude of pluto crats, who reaped where labor had strewed and watered and tilled. But there was' discontent in the land. Cap ital and labor were at war in every manufacturing and mining community. In Massachusetts the head of ttoe wool trust gathered $20,000,000, his private fortune, while employing at $8 a week laborers who were nec essitated to shelter, feed and clothe families on that miserable pittance. Secure in his monopoly, enjoying free trade in labor, this man made his millions and was enabled to declare enormous dividends for his partners in monopoly. Occasionally, no doubt, he made liberal contributions to funds devoted to buy elections for the party of “Great Moral Ideas.” * • * Woodrow Wilson was elected to put a stop to that sort of infamy. A tariff bill was introduced, and the henchmen of monopoly, in both houses of congress, swore by all the gods that took pride in Hector of Troy, that it meant idle mills, closed shops, deserted mines, slothful labor, bankrupt capital, charity soup houses, universal ruin, and more than the misery of leprosy in every household. But the bill passed and Is a law. If a protective tariff were not born of a lie and had not fed on an apology—if it were not sin without one redeeming trait—then the new tariff would have struck all industries between wind and water and sent them to Davy Jones’ locker. It would have withered them. On the contrary, it stimulated them. Old en terprises took on new life; new enterprises sprang into existence and West Virginia was never so busy, never so prosperous, as now, though this law that was to beggar her has been in force since the first week in October! • • • They said that the Democratic tariff would throw Massachusetts on her beam’s end. Now there is this to be said of that old commonwealth—Massachusetts knows which side of her bread has the butter spread on it. The other day Massachusetts sat in judgment on the Wilson administration and approved it, for 75 per cent of the vote cost for Bird, the Progressive, was a Wilson vote, had It been put up to them, yea or nay. Take the historic third Massachusetts congress dis trict, a distinctively manufacturing community, where capital has been coddled and pampered by “protec tion” for half a century, where has prevailed that un speakable lie, take care that the rich shall get richer and they will take care of the poor—and what do we find? t • • • That district only a while ago had a Republican majority of 9,000. In 1912 it had a Republican plural ity of 3,200. The other day when Woodrow Wilson was on trial before that electorate, the Republican plurality was a miserable and beggarly 156 votes. I have repeatedly suggested that the free trade speech of Daniel Webster, made in 1824 in the senate, be made a Democratic campaign document. It is the ablest argument in favor of free trade yet made in America. He was defeated in his view; New England, from a commercial, became a manufacturing communi ty, arid Webster, the lawyer, not the statesman that he was. turned with his client. Had Webster been composed of the stern stuff that made Calhoun, what a different history of the Ameri can people might have been writ! Washington,' November $4. OUNTRY a |jf* TlMECf OME topics Comoctep Effjros.viHJru.'TOrt WHERE PARIS FASHIONS LEAD ITS. Mr. Poultney Bigelow, son of Hon. John Bigelow, who died in New York some years ago, full of honors and universally respected, and whose son, Mr. Poultney Bigelow, has held many positions in the diplomatic corps of this country, has been interviewed on the subject of Paris fashions for women. He has lived in Paris for a considerable number of years and knows what he is talking about. He does not hesitate to say that our clean-minded American women would discard the prevailing styles of skirts and decollete waists if they only knew where these styles are originated and the class of women who wear them. Everybody who has read of a certain class of French women who frequent the horse races and live with their beaux regardless of the marriage tie, can understand the force of Mr. Bigelow’s criti cism when he says these women will wear anything that is loud and brassy, but the good women of the city would never think of following the lead in dress that these fast women originated' and use to attract at tention in public places from fast men. The various orthodox churches of this country are publicly censuring the styles that prevail here in the United States. They do not hesitate to pronounce them indecent and suggestive of unclean thoughts in men. Such arraignments should make our fashion leaders sit up and take notice. Some of these skirts are less than four feet entirely around the bottom, and the length of stride cannot possibly give liberty to make a normal step in walking. The fashion plates' show a silt in the skirt to ease the situation, which is agreeable to those who desire to display a full length of ankle sometimes with jew eled fastenings. Cloth is not so scarce that our women should truss themselves about the lower limbs and from what I am told the dressmakers charge as much to make a narrow little dress as they wcfuld to allow some fullness. Everybody is convinced that the style is ungraceful, and why do our women adopt it? Did you ever see a long train hitched on to one of these narrow skirts? The two little forked ends that switch about are positively ludicrous. • • • THE GIVING: OF PRESENTS. . Already the newspapers $re telling the people to hurry up to do their Christmas shopping, that the time is short and the necessity for haste apparent, etc. Perhaps I am a real old fogy, but I have a well- grounded opinion that we are stressing this inter change of Christmas gifts and wedding gifts a little beyond the limit- If anybody sent you a cup anu saucer last year or a handkerchief or a necktie or a pair of slippers, you are going to strain a point and either pay back in kind or “go one better.” And when you receive a wedding invitation the present must be purchased or you will stay at home, send a regret or plead illness, or feel shabby. You would like to see the young people in their wedding finery and wish them well, etc., but you can only buy a trifle because rient is due, taxes are high, and your Vown tribe are clamoring for new things to wear, etc- Now, what are you to do? Those who expect to have weddings in their own family and hope to get Presents in return, or those who have been married and received bridal presents, just must buy something to match and let the tribe at home wait awhile or get credit extended. All the time woridering if those that gave to you will not turn up their noses at what you have given after much mental worry and some self-sacrifice. The habii has grown to immense national proportions. The sen ate and house of representatives passed the hat around and have bought bridal presents for President Wilson’s daughter. If all the Wilson girls get married the hat will go around twice more. Alice Roosevelt got a room full of things, among them eight chests of solid silver. The thought ot eight chests of silver forks and spoons is really pitiful. It is giving gone' crazy. It is all right and proper for kinfolks to give the young married ones nice things, but the idea of bowing in obeisance to rulers strikes me as something anomalous. A halt will be called sometimes because the habit is already topheavy. • ♦ • CKCRXjS, be carefue. The two young women who signed contracts for the vaudeville stage in a South American city and who were going out there without a male escort, had an ex perience they will nsver forget. They signed up with a Portuguese play house con tractor and his subsequent conduct gave them a fair idea of what they had reason to expect. But it so happened that these two young women ' were passengers on the- same boat that carried former President Roosevelt and his wife to South America. The girls were sprightly and handsome and full or the spirit of adventure, but Mrs. Roosevelt had knowl edge of what those girls were risking, and persuaded them to change their minds and go back home. 'Ad- other steam was about to start to New York when the Roosevelt party entered the harbor. The Portu guese play house man was on the watch out and when those two girls went on board the outgoing steamer, he had both arrested and carried before a magistrate for alleged breach of contract. And it took all of the influence of Mrs. Roosevelt, and the American consul besides to rescue those two girls from their unfortu nate dilemma. The Portuguese contractor raved like a madman, arid was so ugly that he terrorized those girls who were unacquainted with the language and the laws and customs of that foreign country. If they had not been protected by influential Americans there is no telling what their experiences would have been. Those girls placed themselves In a position where they would have been at the mercy of the contractor and doubtless would have been victimized and insulted if not ruined. Girls should be careful in going to American cities where the danger is great, though not so serious, per haps, as in a foreign city. Mrs. Roosevelt did a gra cious deed when she made personal appeals to the American consulate in behalf of those imprudent young women. They were simply walking like two little flies into a cruel spider-web of danger. v Our Unknown Tongue A book review makes note of the fact that there are 450,000 terms in the latest edition of the Standard dictionary, against 304,000 twenty ye^rs ago. The in creases, it is stated, shows an advance in the science of lexicography as-well as the growth of the English vocabulary. English in its present development is the most flex ible of languages. Upon the lips of a man who has a good working knowledge of the vocabulary it is an un matched instrument for thought conveyance. Yet how many of us know enough of it to make it so? In an elbow acquaintanceship with an unabridged dictionary lies a continuous and expanding opportunity for education. Yet many persons, even afnong those whose vocation is to deal in one day or another with words, look irfijthe dictionary only to settle a bet or an argument, and in their daily work follow the method of the girl who didn’t know whether to spell it “para dise” or “paradice,” so spelled it “heaven,” and saved herself the trouble of inquiry. Not only every library, but also every business of fice, should have an unabridged dictionary at hand, and a smaller one as well. The convenience of a smali volume is not to be underestimated, and ordinarily the abridged dictionary serves the purpose. When it does not the more unwieldly, but more complete, volume should be within easy reach. It is not necessary to look in an unabridged dictionary to learn how to spell words ordinarily used, but the habit of consulting the highest authority results' In constantly increasing knowledge of the misuse of many of them. As that ^knowledge increases—and it is never complete—the vocabulary gains precision and its possessor becomes a more skilled workman. Skilled labor is at once bet tor paid and more agreeable to the laborer than mere drudgery.—LouisvilleT Courier-Journal. RURAL CREDITS XI—THE BANKS OF ITALY. BY FREDERIC J. HA SKIN. Borrowing a page from the book of German finan cial experience. Signor Leone Weliemborg began, in 1880, to preach the gospel of rural credits to the email farmers of Italy. After three years of writing and lecturing he finally succeeded in organizing a rural bank at Loreggia, In the province of Padua, with thirty members. The following year a bank was founded at Castelfiorentino, and others came apace, with the re sult that there are now some 1,000 such banka in Italy. In 1892 the Catholic church, seeing the possibilities of self-help among its rural members, took up the work of directing the organization of such banks, with the result that today two out of three rural banks ar« un der church supervision. History was but repeating itself in the organization of the rural credit system in Italy. Tha first bank was the answer of a practical philanthropist to the de mands of the misery about him. There was a slow, hard beginning; then a welcoming of the Idea with wide acclaim; then success, and then division. In Ger many Raiffeisen had had the same trouble a third of a century before, and had lived through it all. But, where Dr. Haas in Germany had found too much re ligion in the Raiffeisen bank, here In Italy was the priest Don Gerutti finding too little In the Weliemborg banks, and it was this that led to the organization of the first church bank in 1892. • • • Italy seems to be the only country where co-opera tive banking has become a sort of church institution. It is true that Raiffeisen always kept the moral idea in co-operative banking at the forefront, and tried to utilize his system in developing the higher traits of citizenship, but there was no direfct connection between the church and the banks. The idea of uniting the two interests has been found to give the church a peculiar hold upon the individuals who patronize the bank, and the fact that the village priest enjoys the confidence of everybody makes him a useful official in the bank. Furthermore, as a man of education and training he knows how to handle institutional funds. And still further, he has about the best line that can be nad upon the moral and financial status of every resident of the community, as well as peculiar advantage in knowing the needs of individuals and the uses to which they are likely to put the funds they seek- That the system of uniting the banks with the church in the Italian provinces has worked well from tha banking standpoint Is indicated by the statistics of these batiks; that it has worked well from the standpoint of the church is evidenced by the gradual extension of tne number of hanks and the testimony of the church au thorities; but that it would work well elsewhere has not been demonstrated. • • * All the rural banks, both sectarian and non-secta rian, insist upon honesty and good character as a con dition of becoming a member, but some sectarian banks call for certain religious observances as a condition of membership. • • • The rural bank of Italy follows the German idea in the requirement of unlimited liability of all Its members for Its obligations, and holds also to the idea of doing business only in the immediate community. They seldom have any capital to begin with, and pay from 3 to 4 per cent on depositis, using this money in their business as far as it suffices to meet the lend ing demands. The bank gradually creates a small capital out of nominal charges for its services and membership dues. Loans are usually of two kinus, botl^ upon the security of bills; the short-term loan, for a period of not more than two years; and the long-term loan, for a period not to exceed ten years. The short-term loans are renewed every three months, while the long-term loans are paid by Installments. • • • There is a national federation of rural banks in 1 Italy, although they do not use it as a financial or ganization; it bears about the same relation to the Ital ian rural banks that the American Bankers’ associa tion bears to the national banking system of the United States. • • • • Italy also has a system of town banks modelled after the ideas of the German town bank system. What Schulze of Delitzsch was to Germany, Signor Luigi Luzzatti has been to Italy, in the financing of the small urban borrower. In 1865, with the munlcifent capital of $140, Luzzatti started the Popular Bank of Milan, with himself as Its biggest stockholder, to the extent of $40. • • • His system differs from the German town bank sys tem in a number of ways. In the first place, it Is more democratic in Its plan of organization. It has rather \ large board of directors whose powers are supreme, controlling both the officers and the audit ing committee. It has also two committees unknown in the German system—the committee on discounts arid the committee on risks. The latter committee keeps constant watch over the finances of the borrowers, in order that if there are the slightest signs of impend ing insolvency, it may be reported to the bank in time to permit It to realize on the security. It is said that the reason the system of thus directing the affairs of the Italian bank through the board of unpaid members has worked out well In practice is due to the willing ness of the Italians as a race to serve gratis In cor porate institutions, even though such service may In volve the most painstaking duties. • • • The Italian town bank omits the “unlimited liabili ty” feature of the German bank. Lqzzattl had the genius to see that this thing, suited to the German be cause of a century of practicing the idea under gov ernmental compulsion, was not suited to the Italian. He knew that the Italian would never be willing to bind his every dollar to make good the obligations of his bank. The readiness with which the Friendly soci eties recognized the new bank as a secure place for the Investment of their funds largely took the place of the "unlimited liability” feature of the German sys tem, which Schulze thought was the only plan under which the bank could hope to secure outside credit. • • • The Italian town banks use as the chief channel of credit the bill of exchange, the advance bill and the trade bill. It is easier to refuse a renewal of one of these bills If the borrower Is making poor use of his money, and easier to rediscount them, which appeals to the bank. Where funds are limited, the preference al ways Is given to the small borrower, and some of the richer banks make small loans to peasants too poor to be members. • • • Unlike the situation in Germany, there is co-opera tion between the town and the country hanks, and the town banks frequently furnish the country banks with surplus funds, while some of them have gone so far as to start branch banks in the country districts, some times as mere auxiliaries but more frequently as self- governing colonies on the way to ultimate independ ence. Whether the friendly relations between the town and country banks is the result of a more states manlike policy between them than is pursued In Ger many, or whether it is because neither has pre-empted enough territory to be in the way of the other, the best observers have not decided; but the fact remains that where the country banks and the town banks of Ger many have a mutual antipathy, those of Italy are on friendly terms. • * * The town banks of Italy are popular places of de posit with the wage earners of the Italian cities. Al though the rank and file of them may be small, their total deposits aggregate $140,000,005, which is in excess of the loans they make by $50,000,000, showing that the Italian banks have a higher percentage of non-borrow ing members than those of Germany. • • * The town banks of Italy are composed of members from every class of society. Forty-five out of every hundred members are artisans, small shopkeepers and small farmers. Clerks and professional members bring this up to five-eighths of the total membership. In some of the smaller banks a share of stock is but ffc while in others it goes as high as $20.