SPAIN - CREDIT 



§ 3. The various tendencies towards a finai. organization 

 of the positos. 



We have rapidly considered what has been done up to the present 

 by the Royal Delegation of the Positos to reorganize these estabUshments. 

 The work, is, however, far from complete. Senor Calbeton, one of those 

 who has most deeply studied the question, says: "It is not enough to 

 Hquidate the Positos, to ascertain their capital, separate their good and 

 bad debts and reaUse their assets ; when once this ungrateful work is ac- 

 complished and has put an end to so many old abuses, we must not abandon 

 the positos without modifiying their organization in respect to what is out 

 of date; to submit them perpetually to the dictatorship, which the law 

 of 1906 only authorized as an exception with the object of avoiding greater 

 evil, would be to adjourn the solution, if not to compUcate the problem; 

 to leave them without defence, with no central organisation, would be 

 to open their safes to the greed of all and to expose them to eveiy kind 

 of abuse". The moment in fact seems to have arrived for adopting a de- 

 finite resolution in regard to the situation of the Positos, so that their 

 reaUsed assets may indeed be useful to agriculture. 



Many are the proposals that have been put forward. One, dating 

 from the first half of the last century and which has still to day some parti- 

 sans, is to use the capital of these establishments to found a Central 

 Bank or estabUshment to exert its action over the whole country in a 

 modern, simple and practical manner. But, in addition to the enormous 

 difficulty of the complete hquidation of the positos, a consideration of 

 a moral order has been brought forward in opposition to this proposal: 

 the capital of the I ositos, in any case, belongs to the villages. Consequently, 

 the State can and must see that it is properly used and prevent malvers- 

 ation but must stop there, as this property belongs to others although 

 it is held in common. 



A dift'erent theory has been advanced in defence of the Positos, 

 that " their disappearance would be no progress but rather an irreparable 

 blow to agricultural credit ". The idea is that it would be useless to found 

 these large agricultural banks, which by reason of their distance from the 

 labourers and other difficulties inherent in their operation, could be of no 

 use to those who have immediate need of small loans and could offer no 

 other guarantee than their own honesty. Again, the foundation of rural 

 banks is not a matter for official action, but they must be based on the 

 mutual system, on reciprocal confidence and can only follow the de- 

 velopment of the spirit of association. Thus in those places where there 

 are no rural banks and yet the need for credit is beginning to be felt, 

 a posito should be founded, as, owing to its official character, it could 

 be started and work under the protection of the Government. 



The most recent tendency is that manifested among the rural asso- 

 ciations. The Royal Delegation is invited to solve the problem by giving 



