2b RUSSIA - CO-OPERATION AND ASSOCIATION 



is defining itself to form among the federations local units of the same 

 type, like the Popular Bank of Moscow (i). 



The number of the funds of the zemstvos, of which the first was found- 

 ed in 1907, passed between July 1914 and Jtdy 1916 from 215 to 266, 

 increasing, that is, by forty-one. The total sum on the balance-sheets 

 of these funds was one hundred million roubles in July 1915, deposits 

 amounting to sixty-five million roubles. The very rapid development of 

 the federations of the co-operative societies and their larger activity has 

 raised the question of their relations with the funds of the zemstvos and the 

 definite organization of the latter. Perhaps they will transform themselves 

 iiito banks of the zemstvos, enlarging the sphere of their activity which 

 will come to embrace not onl}' small credit but also the more important 

 forms of agricultural, communal and co-operative credit. 



§ 4. Government subsidies to institutions of smai.i, credit. 



The chief sources of the government subsidies to small credit institu- 

 tions are, in the case of short-term loans, the Bank of the Empire, in that 

 of loans maturing slowly the savings banks (2), especially when the neces- 

 sary capital has to be obtained for the constitution of small credit estab- 

 lishments. The sums granted by the government have been of recent 

 years as follows : 



1914 264 million roubles 



19^:5 313 » » 



and on 8 July 1916 380.9 » » 



of which 320 million roubles or about 80 per cent, emanated from the Bank 

 of the Empire and 60.8 million roubles from the State savings banks. 

 Small credit institutions do not however exhaust all available credit in the 

 Bank of the Empire and the savings . banks. The following table shows 

 the relation existing between the credit granted by the Bank of the Empire 

 from 1914 to 1916 and the indebtedness to this bank of the small credit 

 institutions : 



Credit granted Indebtedness % 



(millions of roubles) 



iqi4J October 240 129 53 



^ ^ I Decembei 256 94 36 



t January. « 260 84 32 



i9i5,July 275 151 54 



I December 306 75 25 



igi6\l^'}''^'y 308 69 23 



^ 'July 319 68 21 



(i) See our issue Bulletin mensuel des Institutions iconomiques ct Sociales, October 

 191 2. uLa, Banque Populaire de Moscou et son origine «. 



(2) See International Review of Agricultural Economics June 1916, page 24, " Popular 

 Co-operative Credit " (continued). 



