Function and Legal System of Saving Money Institutions in Zamość County and Krasnystaw County in the 1920s and 1930s

Abstract

The Decree of 1919 on Municipal Local Government and Temporary Tax Ordinance was essential for standardizing the principles of functioning of communal association unions after Poland regained its independence. Local government associations of various levels got the right to found them. It was an important legal regulation, especially for the region which was formerly under the Russian rule, where the institution of communal savings unions was practically unknown. In the interwar period the structure of savings funds was dichotomous. There were already existing and newly founded communal association unions of various levels and in 1919 the (state) Post-office Savings Union was founded. In the county of Zamość, as well as in other counties of the Zamość region, the greatest development of county savings unions was in the years 1927 and 1928 and since that time the unions continued to develop well. The funds of the unions were stored and managed separately from the funds of county communal associations. The solvency and security of the funds and fulfilling the obligations by the unions were guaranteed by the whole property and own income of the county communal association. Even though numerous irregularities were found in the functioning of the unions, it must be underlined that unions were valuable and very important local government institutions, especially for the farmers from neighbouring communes. Thanks to fairly simple procedures of granting loans and not very rigorous requirements for securing the loans the turnover of the unions continued to grow each year.