182 



AGRICULTURAL CREDIT BANKS IN RUSSIA. [Dec. 1894. 



followed the example set by the Appanage Department, and by 

 means of a considerable capital that had in the course of many 

 years accumulated from the same sources,, founded peasant 

 savings banks and peasant-aid-funds for the benefit of the peasant 

 serfs. 



The savings banks were founded with the object of encou- 

 raging the peasants to deposit their savings in a bank. The 

 object of the peasant-aid-funds was to advance loans on easy 

 terms to peasants in need. These objects being closely united, 

 establishments of both kinds were opened simultaneously in the 

 same volosts, or country districts. The turnover capital of the 

 peasant-aid-funds was formed partly out of the capital placed 

 at their disposal by the Ministry of Finance and partly out of 

 the profits on the deposits made in the savings banks. Loans 

 were advanced to individual householders, and to communities 

 of the districts in which the bank was located. Loans ranging 

 from one to 60 roubles were made to individual householders 

 for a term limited to three years. The rate of interest was fixed 

 at 6 per cent. Up to the year 1883, there had been opened in 

 28 governments 1,474 peasant-aid- funds, with a floating capital 

 of 7,140,000 roubles. 



These village banks, the banks for appanaged peasants, and the 

 peasant-aid-funds for former Government serfs, do not appear to 

 have worked in a satisfactory manner. Their comparative failure 

 is attributed to several causes, the chief being the want of proper 

 supervision, an imperfect knowledge of business matters on the 

 part of the peasants, the unproductive use to which loans were 

 frequently put, and the incautious advancement of money to 

 insolvent borrowers. 



Prior to the emancipation of the serfs, the attention of the 

 Government was exclusively concentrated on opening up credit 

 to small peasant householders and farmers residing on Govern- 

 ment or appanaged lands. A few years after the emancipation, 

 proposals were made for the extension of easy credit to the 

 peasantry in general, as well as to small traders and manufac- 

 turers, with the object of supporting and developing rural 

 industries and trades. The ideas of Schultze-Delitsch, who was 

 then at the height of his popularity in Germany, had penetrated 

 into Russia, and had been adopted with sympathy and zeal by 

 the best representatives of the intelligent classes of that period. 

 At the instigation of M. Loughinine, a landed proprietor in the 

 Kostroma Government, the first Russian loan-deposit company 

 was founded in 1865, and served as a model to all like companies 

 that vs^ere afterwards opened. 



At first, and for a while, the formation of loan -deposit com- 

 panies advanced very slowly ; but later, owing to the active part 

 taken in their foundation by country councils and private indi- 

 viduals, who, either in the v ay of subscriptions or loans, con- 

 tributed the sums necessary to form a capital fund, the new 

 scheme was carried out on a constantly widening scale. Up to 



