64 Al'STKlA AXl) HUXC.ARV - CRl'.DIT 



The first class (group A) comprises loans for maintenance, that is loans 

 made to peasants in bad years to enable them to live until the following 

 harvest. These may not surpass 200 crowns or be for a longer term than 

 one year, and the reserve fund serves to provide them. The interest charg- 

 ed on them was at the rate of 4 per cent, imtil 1910 when it was raised to 

 5 per cent. 



No guarantee is needed for personal loans o^ less than forty crowns. 

 Above this sum the banks require the signature of a surety. 



The second class (group B) comprises productive loans, such as may be 

 granted to peasants for the purchase of live stock, agricultural implements. 

 etc. Until 1905 the maximum limit of the sums which the departmental 

 banks might lend to an isolated individual were not fixed b}^ a bank's b}'- 

 laws but by a government decree, published for this purpose every year. 

 However in the case of a really exceptional need it was customary for the 

 government to give a special authority to the banks. 



The law of 1905 fixed the limits of personal credit. It was established 

 that ordinarily it should not surpass 600 crowns and that a special autho- 

 rity from the government was needed for larger sums. Loans of this kind 

 were for short terms — one 3^ear — and the interest attaching to them was 

 at the rate of 6 per cent. 



Departmental banks having a reserve fund which has reached the sum 

 anticipated by the by-laws, and having formed a fund for objects of social 

 utility in the manner described, are authorized to grant out of the latter 

 fund all loans which tend to the realization of these objects. The}^ ma}' 

 also make grants to religious enterprises. 



Until 1908 loans were granted in specie but subsequently in kind. 

 The departmental banks are also in the habit of buj-ing agricultural imple- 

 ments, seeds and goods of various kinds, in order to sell them to the peas- 

 ants for credit. 



The official statistics for the years from 1905 to 1910 give us the follow- 

 ing table relative to the working of the departmental banks : 



1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 



Credit granted. 3,162,843 3,079,242 4,93q,463 6,705,858 6,411,433 5,885,450 



Debts repaid. . . 2,916,838 2,772,205 2,987,990 4,077,831 5,452,778 5,402,132 



Debts not repaid. 1,175,645 1,464,221 3.325,479 5,9.35,985 6,840,457 7,323,774 



Capital in shares. 3^,432,086 3,539,329 3,713,668 3,851,175 3,881,178 4,069,707 



Credit granted ' 3,707 1,373 — 13,977 2,196 120 



Debts repaid. . . 13,468 9,827 5,724 4,439 3,387 3,683 



Debts not repaid. 43,475 34,995 29,290 38,822 38,475 34, 912 



Reserve fund. . . 251,156 244,472 253,848 258,575 259,146 261,920 

 Fund for objects 



of social utility. — — 41,200 142,315 202,012 



In Bosnia and Herzegovina social and economic relations did not fa- 

 vour the development of rural co-operative societies in the time of the Aus- 

 trian occupation. The people of the two provinces are naturally conserva- 

 tive and oppo.sed to any innovation. They are moreover too poor to be 



