Reconstruction, from a Farmer's Point of View by Andrew Barton Paterson

So, the bank has bust its boiler! And in six or seven year / It will pay me all my money back -- of course! / But the horse will perish waiting while the grass is germinating, / And I reckon I'll be something like the horse.

There's the ploughing to be finished and the ploughmen want their pay, / And I'd like to wire the fence and sink a tank; / But I own I'm fairly beat how I'm going to make ends meet / With my money in a reconstructed bank.

-"It's a safe and sure investment! " But it's one I can't afford, / For I've got to meet my bills and pay the rent, / And the cash I had provided (so these meetings have decided) / Shall be collared by the bank at three per cent.

I can draw out half my money, so they tell me, from the Crown; / But -- it's just enough to drive a fellow daft / My landlord's quite distressed, by this very bank he's pressed, / And he'll sell me up, to pay his overdraft.

There's my nearest neighbour, Johnson, owed this self-same bank a debt, / Every feather off his poor old back they pluck't, / For they set to work to shove him, and they sold his house above him, / Lord! They never gave him time to reconstruct.

And their profits from the business have been twenty-five per cent, / Which, I reckon, is a pretty tidy whack, / And I think it's only proper, now the thing has come a cropper, / That they ought to pay a little of it back.

I have read about "reserve funds", "banking freeholds", and the like, / Till I thought the bank had thousands of assets, / And it strikes me very funny that they take a fellow's money / When they haven't got enough to pay their debts.

And they say they've lent my money, and they can't get paid it back. / I know their rates per cent were tens and twelves; / And if now they've made a blunder after scooping all this plunder, / Why, they ought to fork the money out themselves.

So all you bank shareholders, if you won't pay what you owe, / You will find that on your bank will fall a blight; / And the reason is because it's simply certain that deposits / Will be stopped, the bank will bust, and serve you right!

The Bulletin, 17 June 1893