he had less than 600 acres, yet he had outside debts when he struck trouble of £850. That man went off the land. He should not have had £200 worth of outside debts. With the bank's advance and outside debts his equality in the place was nothing. There has been too much credit which is detrimental to the farmer, ruinous to the farmer.

8918. Under the bank's assistance?--Yes, there is a vast improvement. Another good season this year will see most of them out of their trouble. These will get out, some will never. The proportion we are dealing with is extremely few, and the farmers appreciate the system. It seems a little bit rough on a man that he has to go to a banker to get his cheque countersigned before he can go to his storekeeper, but we have had no trouble and the farmers appreciate the system.They have had to economise. We have cut down their store bills and outgoings in every possible way. The results are highly satisfactory all round to the farmers, the bank creditors. I cannot say they are highly satisfactory but improving.

8919. You say it might be a good thing to lend money, but better to teach to do without it?--They should be taught to endeavor to be independent. There should be two in dependencies one on the part of the bank and other on the part of the customer. That is the ideal state of affairs. The customer should be in the position to pay up.

8920. You would say that the greatest expense that the settler has to face is that which follows on his getting too much into debt, and in finance in many cases. It is the creditors who are left to do the financing. When a man gets into trouble here and a market for his land does not exist, the only thing to do is to keep him on the land and help him to maintain the land in crop. The conditions lately have been abnormal, so it is difficult to generalise. Since the drought and the war no doubt the conditions have been very difficult and it has been necessary to keep men on the land. I do not think this applies so much to the associated banks as to the Agricultural Bank, which is an entirely diffrent position. The Government institution uses its funds as much in aid of agriculture as in connection with banking. In the absence of stable values the position is a difficult one. If a man goes off the land one does not know what will happen to it. One may or may not be able to sell it. If one can sell it, may have to be sold on extended terms. What is wanted in a case of that sort is to get a better man on the particular area than the man who went off it.

8921. Do you find the difficulty in that respect greater or less here than in the other Sates?--It is quite simple in the other States. There the land in any of the settled districts has a certain value. All that needs to be done is to put it up for auction and the next door neighbor buys it. The difficulty here is that we have a big territory of agricultural land very sparsely settled and without stable value except in certain localities. The land around Northam has a stable value and the other day some of it changed hands at £8 an arcre. At Dumbleyoung, Doodlakine, or Dowerin, although land has been sold up to £5 5s. an acre it would be impossible to get that for it to-day. If one got a bid at all, it would probably be only from an adjoining farmer who would offer to take it over for the bank's liability, that is to say, would offer to step into the other man's shoes, and he would still require to be carried on.

8922. The banks have to proceed with great caution?--They have to pick their men carefully. It is a matter of personality. The two requisitions are good men and good land within a proper distance of a railway. Give a man those conditions and normal seasons and he will do well and be quite safe.

8923. What type of your customers do you find improve their position most?--The mixed farmer has improved his position better than the man in the Eastern distrcts, because the former relies upon sheep. A man with sheep cannot help improving his position. All those who have engaged in mixed farming have improved, even during the drought year, or at all events, have held their own.

8924. Is it the policy of your bank to assist farmers to get sheep?--It has been so for several years, even if they only have a few sheep. Mixed farming can only be gone in for where there are facilities for it. It is no use giving a man who is along the eastern line any sheep. He is not ready for them. The men there have not the water or the fencing, and they have a lot of dogs to contend with. The better class of these men are, however, getting together from 50 to 200 sheep, but they have had to net their inside paddocks. As settlement goes on no doubt there will be a greater number of sheep in the eastern districts. Our main difficulty with a new settler has been that he has had to rely upon one crop only. If that is a falure, he is either done for, or has to struggle along with the assistance of the Government or the banks if they like to stick to him.

8925. Do any of your clients, farming on wheat solely, show satisfactory progress?--Yes. We have a model community at Wyalcatchem. I think that is one of the best bunches of farmers in the country. Messrs. Slocum, Gamble, Ferris, Richards, Wilson, and others are well ahead of it. Some of them are almost out of debt and own their places free. It is a tremendous asset in any new district to have good farmers in it to start with. There are several districts in the State where the first settlers were poor and dirty farmers. Those districts are poor to-day, and will take a long time to improve. The Wyalcatchem and Kellerberrin districts were settled by good men in the first instance. They formed a nucleus for good farming methods, and the new arrivals have copied them. There is no doubt that the early settlers, if they were good men, have had a tremendous influence on the future of the districts in which they settled. Dowerin is another district in which a larger percentage of the farmers have done well. These men are cute enough to know that they have to mix it in order to make their farming really successful. There are sheep in Dowerin at the present time. Some of the settlers are making butter and are keeping cows. Mrs Gregory, at Tammin, makes the finest butter I know of in the State. We have started a propaganda in the eastern districts for pure seed wheat, for suitable seed for particular districts, and for regular supplies of pure seed wheat every year. In many of the districts in this State but little attention has been . ,