38 SPAIN - CREDIT 



The multiplication of facilities for credit in country districts has indeed 

 been for long one of the most important problems of Spanish agriculture and 

 therefore of the national economy. We need not go back to the distant 

 time of the creation of the f>6sitos (i), which at their origin were essentially 

 benevolent institutions, to find the problem of agricultural credit itj Spain 

 in the forefront. It was so towards the middle of last century, as a conse- 

 quence of the loss of the vast Spanish colonial empire and at a time when mo- 

 dern methods of agriculture were generalized. As early as 1841 an ordinance 

 of the regent of the kingdom tended to create Banks of Agriculturists, form- 

 ed with the help of private capital or the available funds of the positos, to 

 make loans to inhabitants of the rural groups. The parliamentar}^ chroni- 

 cles notice in 1866 a scheme for a law proposed b}' Senor Montero Rios on 

 " institutions of agricultural credit and their transactions ". In 1899 ^^" 

 nor Gamaza proposed a law based on the reorganization of the -positos. In 

 1900 a minister, Senor Sanchez de Toca, brought forward a scheme for a 

 law on " agricultural credit for the cultivation and ownership of land " 

 which implied the constitution of local intermediary societies. Finally in 

 1910, 1912 and 1915 Senors Calbeton, Zulueta and Alba respectively formu- 

 lated schemes, the first named for an " institution of agricultural credit " 

 based on the positos and using their capital, the others for an official " agri- 

 cultural bank ". None of these schemes became law, mainly for political 

 reasons. 



Public authority for its part attempted to meet the need with all the 

 means of which it disposed, while the general and complete solution of the 

 problem was being attempted. With this object there was promulgated 

 in January 1906 a law which created a royal commission, charged to liqui- 

 date the credit of the positos and to realize their assets in specie, in order 

 to satisfy the needs of modern agriculture more easily (2).' Since this liqui- 

 dation had been largely completed, and since the government saw that 

 while some positos could not, for lack of capital, satisfy the demand for 

 loans, others, for lack of borrowers, left almost all or a large part of their 

 funds unproductive, the royal decree of 16 October 1914 was promulgated. 

 This decree authorized the constitution of federations of positos, in order 

 completely to mobilize their capital and extend their sphere of action. 

 The federations were granted the option, if they included positos disposing 

 of capital, of making loans to agricultural associations. Unfortunately 

 although these provisions were usefully applied in certain districts, they did 

 not in general give the results expected of them, a fact largely due to the 

 defective management of many positos and the manoeuvres of caciquismo 

 which is still dominant in most rural districts of Spain (3). 



(i) For these communal granaries, which resemble the Italian Monti jntmentari and the 

 Portuguese Cellciros, see our issues for June 1914 (page 72) and December 1915 (page 67). 



(2) See the articles mentioned in the preceding note. 



(3) Cacique, a word of American origin, denotes anyone who by his position or adhesion to 

 a political party is morally master of one or more local groups and to whom most members of 

 the latter are under obligations. Since positos long constituted an arm of caciquismo, the sus- 



