MORTGAGE STATISTICS 83 



(e) » Associations, Co-operative Societies etc. 

 (/) f> Private Individuals ; 

 and, in the case of the redeemable loans alone, whether by : 

 (g) the Austro-Hungarian Bank ; 

 (/?) the State Treasury. 

 Enquiry was further made whether the debt were due : 

 (i) to sale of real estate; 



(2) » inheritance ; 



(3) » seizure ; 



(4) -) non-payment of taxes ; 



(5) » bills; 



(6) » other obligations ; 



(7) » claims on the estate due to family circumstances . 



There were other questions in the Hst such as whether the mortgage 

 was conditional, whether secured on the annual yield etc. 



At the end of the schedule, there were questions in regard to the territorial 

 situation and the number of the entry in the land registers for the holdings 

 subject to additional mortgages to guarantee those previously mentioned. 



On the census forms for the holdings burdened by additional mortgages 

 it was necessary to fill in the name and the residence of the owner entered in 

 the land register, the title of the holding burdened, the amount of the charge 

 and the date of the entry. At the end of the list, enquiry was made with re- 

 gard to the register number and the situation of the holding burdened with 

 the principal mortgage. The abstracting for this enquiry of 1898 showed 

 the state of the land registers did not permit of completely reHable statistics 

 of the mortgage debt being obtained. Above all in the provinces the land 

 registers failed to show the real situation. Often charges no longer existing 

 had not been cancelled, and debts, in part paid off, figured for their full 

 amount. On the other hand, there were burdens on land not registered, 

 as, for example, those deriving from contracts with irrigation societies etc. 

 Now all these errors could have been corrected with the help of the Depart- 

 ment of Finance, but other new difficulties would have had to be over- 

 come. So that, after the first trial, it was decided not to extend the 

 enquiry, as the expenses to be incurred would be out of proportion to 

 the results that could be obtained. 



It may therefore be said that the problem of a general return of mort- 

 gage charges is still awaiting its solution, which, in Hungary as in many 

 other States, chiefly demands the reorganisation of the mortgage registers. 



In the absence of reHable official statistics, the mortgage indebted- 

 ness of Hungary has been calculated conjecturally. Thus Fellner, in cert- 

 ain studies published in the Bulletin of the "Institut International de Stati- 

 stique", came to the conclusion that the debt on the land amounted 

 to 2,860,000 crs. and represented a charge of 18.6 % of the value of the 

 land calculated at 15,375,000,000 crs. 



