CREDIT ASSOCIATIONS 133 



q-ssociations, the members of which are the borrowers who, by 

 becoming jointly responsible, increase their credit, and are 

 thereby able to raise a joint loan ; the creditors have ample 

 security, as long experience has shown, on the properties of all 

 the borrowers for the total loans received. ..While the individual 

 borrowers or members are the debtors of the Association, the 

 latter is the debtor of the actual lenders. The members, 

 besides paying interest on that part of the joint loan which is 

 granted them individually, pay a certain contribution to cover 

 the expenses of administration, and to a reserve fund to meet 

 possible losses, the surplus, if any, of such contributions being 

 afterwards distributed among members. The Associations are 

 fully self-governing; farmers and citizens, town and country, 

 separately or jointly, may form such Associations, the highest 

 authority in which is always vested in the general meeting 

 elected by all members. Only one Association, that for the 

 West and South Jutland, has given the bond-holders the right 

 to vote at the general meeting. 



!^A most important institution ensuring favourable conditions 

 for working a system of loans on the security of land with 

 permanent buildings and live and dead stock had been in 

 existence in Denmark from early timesJ Not only is there a 

 Land Register, in which each individual property is entered 

 and described, but also an official Mortgage-Register, vested 

 in the Courts, is kept, in which each property has its own 

 special registry number and record in which every encumbrance 

 must be entered. It is consequently an easy and also a very 

 inexpensive matter to ascertain what security is available for 

 a mortgage. 



A few days after the Law of 1850 was passed meetings were 

 called in Jutland and Sealand to form Credit Associations ; on 

 the 1st December, 1851, the bye-laws of " The Credit Associa- 

 tion of Landed Estate Owners in Jutland" were approved, 

 and on the 6th December, 1851, those of " The Credit Associa- 

 tions of Property Owners in the Danish Islands." The follow- 

 ing year " The Credit Association for Jutland Towns " was 

 formed. In 1859 an Association was formed which was a credit 

 association neither in name, constitution nor administration, 

 although it offered to obtain loans for owners of land ; it was 



