38C PROVISION OP BORROWING FACILITIES. 



of interest and sinking fund payments. The special duties thus 

 assigned to them appear to have lapsed with the redemption of the 

 liabilities involved, and the Banks were suspended in 1881. Ten 

 years later they were re-established for the especial purposes of 

 the new policy of settling small and medium holders on the land. 

 Their present functions are : (1) to issue bonds on certain condi- 

 tions to vendors upon the sale of their property for conversion into 

 small holdings up to three-quarters of the selling price, and to 

 collect the annuities due thereon; (2) to make advances in connexion 

 with the creation of small holdings (for paying off charges, erecting 

 dwellings and farm buildings, &c.); and (3) under certain conditions 

 to settle by cash payments with co-heirs to properties coming under 

 the Small Holdings Acts. 



These Banks are, in effect, the financial departments of the State 

 organisations, known as the General Commissions, in connexion with 

 the creation of small holdings. The Small Holdings Acts, by virtue 

 of which State credit (that is, through these Banks) is granted, allow 

 any person or body to undertake the division and settlement of a 

 property, but require, before State credit is granted, that plans for 

 division, equipment, settlement, &c., must be approved by the General 

 Commission having jurisdiction. It should be observed, however, 

 that these Banks, which from 1891 to 1909 had issued bonds of the 

 total value of 5,600,000 in respect of small holdings, do not represent 

 the entire extent of State action in Prussia as regards land division 

 and settlement. In the Provinces of West Prussia and Posen, 

 where these Banks do not operate, the Settlement Commission a 

 State organisation with some 000 officials which was created in 1886 



o 



and has been amply endowed with funds stated at 30,000,000 down 

 to 1911 purchases, divides, and distributes estates, and undertakes 

 all the necessary financial transactions connected therewith. 



Finally, under the Imperial Invalidity Insurance Act there exist 

 thirty-one Insurance Institutions, each with an independent legal 

 status, and operating within a particular State, groups of States, 

 Province, or District. These institutions receive the contributions 

 of, and pay the benefits to, all persons insured under the Act against 

 invalidity and old age. The Act authorises a certain proportion of 

 the funds to be invested for purposes of general social welfare within 

 the districts of the various institutions ; in 1909, 14^025,000 was 

 invested in leans for the housing of the working classes and 5,143,600 



