The farm, together with the stock,
are mortgaged, and the expected crops for a stipulated number of seasons
are made over to the usurer at a fixed sum per measure of corn, far
below the market price. Another bad season adds to the crushing burden,
and after a few years, when the unfortunate landowner is completely
overwhelmed with debt, perchance one of the happy years arrives when
propitious rains in the proper season bring forth the grand
cereal-producing power of Cyprus, and the wheat and barley, six feet
high, wave over the green surface throughout the island. The yield of
one such abundant crop almost releases the debtor from his misery;
another year would free him from the usurer; but rarely or never are two
favourable seasons consecutive; the abundant harvest is generally
followed by several years of drought. This pitiable position may be
quickly changed by government assistance without the slightest risk.
The first necessity is capital, and the usurer must disappear from the
scene. I do not think that an agricultural bank will be practically
worked, as the value of money in the east is above 6 per cent., which is
the maximum that the Cyprian cultivator should pay. The government must
advance loans for the special erection of water-wheels, or other methods
of irrigation, at 6 per cent., taking a mortgage of the land as their
security; this loan upon water-works to take precedence of all others.
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