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Show WHY FEWER' BANKS? By J. E. JONES WASHINGTON, D. C. Two banks in Cheney, Kansas, have merged, and the editor of the lo. cal paper gives an answer to the question that is heard so often in many parts of the country as to the reasons for so many bank mergers. "In a rural community, the principal loan business is that to the farmers," says the Cheney Sentinel, and adds: "A bank must charge an interest suf ficient to pay expenses and pay a dividend to the stockholders." The editor says that since the Federal Government "has been in the business of making loans to farmers ... the business that heretofere went to the bank is . .( no longer theirs," and then the editor explains that the different -irocesses by which the Government Govern-ment makes the taxpayers money available to farmers has cult down the business of local banks so that "in many instances the volume of business in the rural banking" does not justify the investment in-vestment of large sums of capital capi-tal in the smaller banks, which must "either be liquidated or merged." The item shows how the local news of Cheney is national news Because the merger of two banks there and the disturbance of the affairs of local management of those banks as it concerns investment in-vestment of capital and interest on the investment among the lo5 cal citizens is identical in thou, sands of cities and villages in which many banks have been very seriously affected by the j changed conditions that have been I brought about in recent years. J |