38 RUSSIA - CREDIT 



The great increase in the number of properties left to the bank after 

 auctions is the result of a very interesting circumstance. According to the 

 report of 1915, it is explained by the fact that " in the first months of the 

 activity which tended to a vast development of individual property, the 

 rural population regarded this tendency rather coolly. It was therefore impos- 

 sible to secure the desired choice of purchasers and some of the lands passed 

 to peasants whose economic situation was too weak. The bank, when it 

 perceived that it was absolutely impossible for these peasants to carry on 

 well the farming they had undertaken, was constrained, after having granted 

 many facilities to the purchasers, to put these lands up for auction ". 



In other words the first aim of the reform of 1907 was the creation at 

 all costs of individual property in order to split up the compact mass of the 

 mif ; and, as a more detailed analysis will show, the formation of a certain 

 class of peasant proprietors was only a secondary aim. 



This third period and the activity which preceded it left to the bank 

 hundreds of thousands of deciatines, emanating from purchasers not 

 fulfilling their obligations in time, in spite of the various facilities granted 

 to them; and this is on the whole an unfavourable indication of the bank's 

 land policy. 



Thus the following table shows that while from 1887 to 1905 only 

 273,006 deciatines, worth altogether 17,762,653 roubles, were left to the 

 bank ; within a far shorter period the area not sold, when put up for public 

 auction, was 566,562 deciatines, having a total value of 65,635,445 roubles. 



TabIvE VI. — Total Area and Mortgage Debt of Lands left with the Bank. 



Number 

 Year of 



properties 



1887-I9O5 272 



1906 217 



1907 381 



1908 241 



1909 ......... 170 



I9IO 223 



I9II 218 



1912 ........ 5gi 



1913 965 



1914 729 



1915 1748 



The influence of the bank's vast purchase of lands caused the price of 

 lands to rise to an unprecedented level, and therefore the peasants were 



