144 RUSSIA - MISCEI.I.ANEOUS 



In accordance with these provisions, the Bank had displayed a cert- 

 ain activity, in the period 1896-1905, in the field of home colonisation, 

 having sold directly to peasants 700,000 deciatines of land for a total 

 value of 52,000,000 roubles. 



In order further to encourage the work of the Bank in this field, the 

 following measures were adopted in 1906 : 



1. By Imperial Ukase of November 5th. i8th., 1906 the Bank was 

 authorized to grant loans on nadiel land, which up to then could not be 

 mortgaged, as it was already heavily burdened with mortgages to the 

 State as security for purchase price. 



The balance of the mortgage debt to the State having been extin- 

 guished (by Manifesto of November 3rd./i6th., 1905 see §1. at the end), this 

 impediment was removed, and when the peasants needed money, not 

 alone for the purchase of new land, but for the reaHsation of the new 

 land reforms, they were in a position to contract loans with the Bank 

 on mortgage of the nadiel land which formed their chief assets. These 

 loans, however, could only be contracted for agricultural improvements, 

 or for the extension of the area of peasants' farms ; in the case of land pur- 

 chase, the amoimt advanced by the Bank is paid by it directly to the seller 

 (in no case to the peasant purchaser) ; in the case of farm improvements, 

 the Bank itself supervises the employment of the loan ; in this way the dan- 

 ger has more or less been eliminated of the peasants running too deeph' 

 into debt through the loans they are allowed to contract on the security 

 of nadiel land. 



2. By virtue of an amendment of the rules of the Bank (§54), in the 

 year 1895, the maximum loan, instead of being fixed absolutely was fixed 

 at a certain proportion (60-90 %, in certain cases up to 100 %) of the estim- 

 ated value of the land the adult males of the family were capable of cul- 

 tivating themselves. This was really raising the maximum of the loan, 

 the more so as regulations of December 3rd./ 6th., 1900, stipulated that 

 the lots of land the peasants could buy through the medium of the Bank 

 must be at least 10 deciatines in area and at most 21 deciatines 

 per household. 



In the new conditions these provisions were out of place ; from the begin- 

 ning of 1912, the area of the ordinary holding the Peasants' Bank had to 

 supply for each household was calculated in proportion to three times the 

 maximum estabhshed for the adult males (see section 2) : the areas of 

 the new lots consequently vary from 8 % to 21 deciatines, according to 

 local conditions. 



3. After a temporary increase in the rate of interest (July I4th./27th., 

 1905), the amounts of the instalments to be paid by the peasants on loans 

 from the Bank were again reduced, by a ukaseof October 14th. 27th., 1906, 

 to 9 ^, 7 14' 5 ^5' 4 7 10 and 4 14 % respectively, according to the various 

 dates of maturity. This considerable decrease in the instalments of (from 

 '•'/4 to I 14 %) really means a reduction of the rate of interest to 4 % per 

 ann., so that the loans on land made by the Peasants' Bank are now al- 



