THE PRINCIPAI, RURAL I,AND CREDIT INSTITUTES 65 



their subscribed shares. Of course the debtors are members with joint 

 and several habihty. 



The foundation members have right to vote (1,2 or 5 votes according 

 to the number of their shares) in the general meeting of the institute, while 

 the ordinary members have only one vote for every 250,000 florins lent 

 them. 



The management is entrusted to a president and a vice-president, 

 elcted at the general meeting, assisted by 3 councillors. Besides this board 

 of management, there is a committee of 9 members for the examination of 

 accounts. 



The loans at first, might not exceed 12,000 florins. The limit was 

 extended in 1883 to 20,000 and in 1887 to 40,000 florins : later on, in 1893 

 every restriction of the kind was abohshed. Yet the work of the instit- 

 ute in behalf of the small landowners has been continually extended. I^et 

 us mention, in proof of this, that, in 1910, 54,977 loans on mortgage had been 

 granted of a value of less than 12,000 crs. and only 3,025 for a larger amount. 



The loans are granted up to half the value of the mortgaged land. 

 But, with the object of offering the small landowners a larger credit, in 

 1905 the institute entered into a special agreement with the Central 

 National Mutual Credit Society. The two associations have undertaken to 

 grant loans up to 75 % of the value of the mortgaged property, the national 

 institute granting loans for 50 % and the Central Society for the ba- 

 lance, 25 %. The Provincial Societies, which are divisions of the Central 

 Society, act as intermediaries and sureties for the loans granted by the two 

 societies mentioned above. 



In addition, the National Institute, by lyaw XXXII of 1897, began 

 granting loans for improvements and for home colonisation and, in 1911, in 

 order further to extend this class of business, it took part in the foundation 

 of the new " National Confederation of Hungarian Land Credit Institutes. " 

 At the beginning, the I^and Credit Institute for Small Landowners issued land 

 bonds at 5 14 %• Since the payments into sinking fund and the contrib- 

 utions to working expenses were both i %, the annuities the debtors 

 had to pay amounted to 7 % %. In 1886 bonds were issued at 5 % and 

 in 1889 at 4 ^ % and at the same time the payments into sinking fund 

 and the contributions to working expenses were reduced to the half. The 

 debtor's contribution to working expenses was then reduced in 1893 to ^. % 

 and in 1903 an issue of bonds at 4 % was made. 



It is just since this date that the business of this institute has been 

 making rapid progress. The loans in land bonds rose from 69,995,670 crs. 

 in 1904, to 157,798, 706 crs. in 1910, while those in cash rose from 132,010 crs. 

 to 409,781 crs. At the end of 1910, taking into accoimt 11,000,000 crs. 

 for improvement loans, one might calculate the total amount of the loans 

 made by the institute at about 170,000,000 crs. The reserve fund increased 

 from 6,415,618 crs. in 1904 to 12,391,149 crs. in 1910. 



3. — Tlie Land Credit Institute at Nagy-Szeben, founded in 1870 on the in- 

 itiative of the Saxon Agricultural Association of Erdely (Transylvania), 

 met at first with some difficulties, due partly to the poverty of the region in 



