The borrowing of implements at interest from money-lenders is a corollary of civil war regarding which Mr, Li offers some of the first formation ever known to English writers. The bandits or provincial soldiers, on entering a village, gen ally kill the first cow available for food and use agricultural implements fg their only source of fuel for a large roasting fire. According to a census taken in 25 towns and eleven If the farmer is unable to meet the payments, his guarantor steps 'n and likewise pays forever, or until the $10 Is repaid in a lump. If neither the farmer nor the guarantor can make mayments, then the 5 cents each market day 1s added to the principle and this total indebtedness draws interest. Numerous cases ere found in Kuangnathsion where this {ype of loan had piled up a debt equal {0 30 or 40, times the original principle and the farmer had no choice but to go through bankruptey.
There are more than twenty Kinds cash loan methods beside the somersault," all classified according to the number of crises, or loan payment days, All loans require either a guarantor or a mortgage. If the guarantor assumes payment after the farmer has allowed his obligation to apse, the guarantor will pay up the full amount of the loan, but the far~ mer will still be responsible for the payments during the period of lapse; other words, a part of the loan must be paid twice. If mortgaged properly must be sold, it is the custom for the money-lender to receive double the value of the loan as a penalty on the farmer.
The "20-crisis loan" is one of these methods. A farmer borrows $10 and uroes to repay one dollar every ten days from the time of the loan for 200° days, If this interest rate is computed according to Western standards, It amounts to 750 per cent. Yet this is the most common form. of Joan in North Szechuen, Another Favourite Trap In "South Szechuen the moneylender's favourite trap is called the In borrowing $10 the farmer re es only $8, since the Interest is deducted.
Then. he pays his creditor 10 cents a day for a 100, days. Sometimes a high-handed money-lender will add a clause that if the farmer misses a single pay-will not only be responsible for {wo payments on the following day, but also a penally equal to 10 sub-districts of Kuangnaihsion, farmers in a single year of anti-Communist fighting lost 8,000 hoes, 700 plows, and more than 10,000 misceltaneous implements, either burned by the soldiers or' carried off for trench digging.
The only men who could keep impiements were the money lenders who bribed the soldiers to leave their property. Since then, the money-lenders have made unbelieveable profits on the loaning of necessary tools Implements and Animals Involved A hoo rents for from 10 to 20 cents a day, and the farmer must specify exactly how long he will use it because there are many others waiting. Cows, horses, and donkeys rent fo 20 cents a day during slack season and over $1 per day during plowing oF harvest time, Water buffaloes are the gilt-edge security of the usurer. For example in Kuanhsien, a district with 500,000 mow of rice land, there are only 7,000 buffalo, a loss of 14,000 since 1034. The remaining animals are not Fly sume lent to do the plowing, they therefore rent for very high prices. A good animal will bring $2 a mow of land plowed, and can do three mow a day, The usurer can earn $6 a day with one buffalo, and pay for the animal in less than a month, The farmer is helpless against the combined onslaught of the tax-collec-for, landlord, usurer and district judge, who seem to be determined that the farmer shall get not $1 profit for his labour. The farmer has ceased to hope; he is "stolid and stunned" as Edwin Markham would living from sunset to sunset, certain that usury will be his death.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.