Századok – 2008

TANULMÁNYOK - Vári András: A magyarországi hitelszövetkezeti mozgalom megalapítása 1886-1894 III/629

practice of the cooperatives and conservative ideas. On a more basic level, credit coops meant substantial competition for rural money-lenders and small-town savings banks. Still, there are signs, that the whole movement was launched at first with support, or at least benevolent tolerance of the liberal government of the day. But after the coop movement has made a successful start in the central, and most important county of Hungary, in that of Pest, the government withheld its support from the next drive of the coops to become a nationwide network. Government policy towards the coops has changed to a policy of containment, attempts to pass a law on the functioning of coops were marked by blatant disregard for the autonomy of the coop movement. This change of government policy was considered by historiography to have been closely connected to the political struggle of the day. The coop issue has seemed to be a sideline of the struggle between the liberal Wekerle-government and conservative/Catholic opposition. At least as important as this larger political struggle in deciding the fate of coops was, however, another factor. Premier Wekerle had supported a banking consortium, that wanted to cater through issues of bonds for the same markets of financial services, that the coops supplied. To clear the way, the network of actually existing credit coops had to denied the rights of bond issues that would have made their rapid expansion possible. On the other hand, the same banks provided very favourable credits for a number of government politicians.