Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1942, Side 163

THE DANISH CREDIT ASSOCIATIONS
151
reached 2.500.000.000 Kroner compared with the 2.000.000.000
of agriculture. This development has been supported by an im-
portant interchange, whereby important branches of industry
have been founded on raw materials supplied by agriculture,
which in return has been able to buy a good deal of its working
materials from home industries.
It is, therefore, indisputable that the growth of the credit
associations has been parallel to a strong development of the
economic life of the country and of its wealth. But it is, of
course, impossible to show directly to what extent the associations
have contributed to this development. As the agricultural industry
is most strongly dependent on financing on the basis of the
security of real property inquiries have, naturally, been mainly
directed to conditions within this industry. During the crises
which agriculture has passed through especially in the period
between the two wars its burden of debt has proved difficult
to bear, and the view has therefore been advanced that the
easy access to loans through the credit associations has been harm-
ful to farming. It cannot be denied that the mortgage debt of
agriculture is really greater than desirable, neither can it be denied
that probably a good deal of it has been contracted irresponsibly.
But the essential part of the increase up to 75 per cent of the mort-
gage value has taken place since 1926, when the debt amounted
to only about 50 per cent, and it has been a consequence rather
than a cause of the difficulties of agriculture which are due to
international conditions of a complicated nature. At all events
the debt to the credit associations is normally within 40 per cent
°f the mortgage value and amounts to about half the total
mortgage debt, and a possible over-capitalisation of agriculture
beyond its yielding capacity cannot, therefore, be due to them.
On.the contrary, it is generally recognised that the credit asso-
ciation have a considerable share in the development of Danish
farming. The developments are not due to them, but they would
hardly have been possible without them. The resolute and
thorough change of working methods and production at the end
of last century was, like the modernisation and extension at the
beginning of the present century, due to a unique close collabo-
ration between science and practical farming. Its prerequisite was
an enlightenment of the people which enabled the farmer to
appreciate the lesson to be drawn from experimental results, and
a spirit of enterprise which was quick to turn theory into prac-