NOTICES RELATING TO AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY IN GENERAL 



not in the first place provide for the regulation of the jurisdictory relations 

 between the agas and the kmeti, that is between those who own the land and 

 those who make it fructify by the labour of their hands. 



This assertion of an undeniable fact gives the author a basis for his 

 statement that the complex and difficult problem of the improvement of 

 agriculture in Bosnia and Herzegovina can be solved in one way only, 

 namely by seeking to reconcile the interests of the agas and the kmeti, 

 by having recourse to more opportune and more practical reforms. 



Dr. Feifalik observes that the rights which the agas and the kmeti res- 

 pectively claim on the same holding constitute a species of condominium, 

 which is injurious not only to these two classes of citizens, whose interests 

 are in consequence continually opposed, but also to the future of agri- 

 culture in the country. 



The author thinks however that in order to untie these feudal bonds 

 and dissolve the jurisdictory relations, which now unite the cultivators and 

 owners of the soil in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the idea should be abandoned 

 of granting to one or other of them the right to redemption from this servi- 

 tude, which both, from the point of view of their opposing interests, consider 

 particularly prejudicial to themselves. For this idea Dr. FeifaHk proposes 

 to substitute another and more practical plan which promises better results, 

 that is the division of every holding between the owning aga and the culti- 

 vating kmeti. This division could not however be arbitrary : it would have 

 to be effected under the protection of the law and in accordance with cri- 

 teria for safeguarding, as equitably and exactly as possible, the interests 

 of either party with due regard to their respective rights. 



The term cifiic designates, when applied to land, holdings of which the 

 agas are jurisdictorily recognized to be owners and the kmeti to be cultiva- 

 tors, that is holdings over which the two classes exercise their respective 

 rights, a condition which is tantamount to the existence of a species of 

 condominium. 



By the law of 1911 the Austrian and Hungarian government proposed 

 to solve the agrarian problem in Bosnia and Herzegovina by a definite rup- 

 ture of the jurisdictory^ and feudal relations which had existed from time 

 immemorial between the kmeti and the agas. But Dr. Feifalik thinks this 

 measure inadequate to a really useful and practical solution of this impor- 

 tant problem, and he proposes that the government should instead support 

 a division of the landed property between the two classes of persons 

 interested in it, the agas and the kmeti. 



The author points out that the one difficulty which must be overcome 

 before this proposal is applied if conflicts of interests are not to be provoked, 

 that is if the respective rights of the agas and the kmeti are in no way to 

 be injured, is the difficulty of finding what he calls the key to a just division 

 of the land on the lines indicated, in other words a principle which will 

 give a sure basis for determining, as exactly as possible, what part of a 

 given area of ciflic land, taken as a unit, should be assigned to the owning 

 aga and what part to the cultivating kmet. 



The author states that if we admit for the moment that such a key 



