PEASANTS BILL OF EXCHANGE IN SERBIA

Abstract

In the interwar period, loans against pledged bills of exchange were most widely used, most certain and cheapest way to obtain personal bank loan. However, until the foundation of Privileged Agrarian Bank in 1929, agricultural producers in Serbia were deprived legally from obtaining such loans. This extreme measure of limiting peasants credit ability had been introduced by The Law on Trade, issued in 1860, at times when there were no institutionalized loans or banks in Serbia. Measure of forbidding farmers to issue, accept or transfer bills of exchange would still remain in legal system of Serbia in the end of 19th and the beginning of 20th centuries, when the network of banks and banking system had been already established; it would remain in Serbian legal system even after the state unification of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918, although that was an anachronism in relation to the legal system in the provinces of former AustroHungary that entered The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (SHS); it was abolished only in 1929, with article 79 of The Low on Privileged National Bank, under the pressure of mighty banking circles in Serbia.

From 1860 to 1929, Serbian peasant searched for the ways to sign anyway bills of exchange because he needed desperately the loans. He signed bills of exchange presenting him falsely as trader, speculator or head of estate. In such way, peasants bill of exchange emerged that was always at risk to be accepted by creditor under unbearable terms because it was illegal. Impossibility for peasants to use in legal way bills of exchange that were trading and credit instruments of highest quality at those times made large damage to agriculture and banking of The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.