52 IXFORMATIOX RELATING TO CREDIT 



The followitig are some data as +o the bank's oirculation and issue and 

 the average value of mortgage bonds iu the five years from 1911 to 1915 : 



Issue 



The reserve fund of the Mortirage Bank amounted on 31 December iyi5 

 to 37,670,603.^0 pesos, and the reserv^e intended for tlie concession of loans 

 to 11,204,727.07 pesos. 



GERMANY. 



I. THE CONSOLIDATION OF PROPERTY IN PRUSSIA. — Dr. Jur. Albert Dietrich: Der 

 Weg der Besitzfestigung. Jahrhuchder Bodenrefortn. Jena, Gustav Fischer, 21 June 191 /• 



Two years after the Besitzfesti^ungsbesetz (Consolidation of Property 

 Law) had come into force, that is when it was possible to perceive its first 

 results, we explained that while it wotdd strengthen the policy of interior 

 colonization it would at the same time solve the problem of emanicipating 

 land from mortgages (i). It was therefore logical that is should first be 

 applied in the districts in which property was most mortgaged, and such was 

 the course followed. The task was first undertaken in Posnania and West 

 Prussia ; and then — thanks to the action of the Ostpreussiche Landgesell- 

 schaft (East Prussian Land Society), the Pommersche (Pomeranian) Land- 

 gesellschaft and the Schleswig-Holsteinsche Hofehank (Schleswig Holstein 

 Courts' Bank) — in Pomerania, Silesia and Schleswig-Holstein. The de- 

 velopment of this enterprise is interesting to follow, for the consolidation 

 of property cannot fail to have a good effect, from the point of view of 

 agriculture, in the districts where it is realized. 



The parts of Prussia specified in the programme, by the ruling of 12 

 March 1913, are also those to which, as well as to Posnania and West Prus- 

 sia, the law of 26 Jime 1912 was progressively applied. They are : 



East Prussia ; 



District of government of Konigsberg, circle of Rastenberg. 



District of government of Gumbinnen, circles of Angerburg,'Goldap and 

 Oletzko. 



District of government of Allenstein, all circles. 



(i) See our issue for August 1914, BuUetinof Economic and Social Institutions, Vol. XLIV, 

 5th year. No. 8, pp. 85 et seq. 



