130 ROTJMANIA - MISCELLANEOUS 



ity and duration of pre-existing contracts, as well as the manner in which 

 they may be cancelled and the compensation to be given in that case. 

 This law was principally meant for the ehmination of agricultural inter- 

 mediaries, so injurious, as we have had already occasion to see, to the wel- 

 fare of the peasants and to the development of agriculture in Roumania. 



The last of the laws relating to land reform in Roumania is that of 

 June 20th., 1910, which provides that land belonging to the State or to 

 pubHc associations or estabHshments may be leased to rural associations for 

 their exclusive use, without being tendered for. This is therefore no in- 

 significant facilitation the State has granted the rural associations, which are 

 thus enabled to compete with the landlords and tenant farmers for a consid- 

 erable length of time under favourable conditions. This law, however, 

 has apparently not produced the results hoped for. 



§ 3. The results of the reform up to the present. 



Such important and wise laws as were passed after the 1907 revolt 

 could not but produce abundant excellent results. The progress made by 

 Roumanian agriculture in the last six years is the best proof of the excell- 

 ence of the new laws. The results of the land reforms may be summed 

 up in a single phrase : the almost complete disappearance of every kind 

 of abuse, so frequent, indeed usual, previously. 



However, if we reflect on the serious diffictilties that are always met 

 with wherever attempt is made to reform or improve a situation that 

 has lasted for years, it is no matter of surprise if, in some cases, the laws 

 introducing the reforms have been evaded or have not produced all the 

 results they were intended to. 



In an address given on November ist. , 1913 by the Agricultural Inspector 

 C. Georgesco at the Club for Economic and Financial Study at Bucharest, 

 the following results, good or fair, of the 1907 reforms were brought out. 



With regard to the Rural Bank, it is necessary to distinguish between 

 the various duties assigned to it : some of these it has already fully per- 

 formed and the objects in view have been completely attained ; other duties 

 have only been accomplished in part. The institution of a Rural Bank for 

 Roumania was an absolute necessity for the farming population, which felt 

 the need of being in a position to obtain credit easily and cheaply. With 

 regard to the ordinary duties of the Bank, such as that of granting loans to 

 communes for the purchase of communal grazing grounds and loans on 

 mortgage of holdings bought by the peasant before the institution of the 

 Bank itself and the putting of the peasants in the wayof a better cultivation 

 of the soil, it must be allowed that they were fully performed. But an- 

 other object of the Rural Bank, and certainly not the least important, was to 

 change the distribution of the land to the benefit of the peasants, facilitat- 

 ing the formation of small rural holdings b}' them. Georgesco finds that this 

 aim has not been fully realised, although, it must be pointed out, the Bank has 



