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PETRA BALATON
the adverse, natural, archaic social and economic structures suffered from
lagging behind, which resulted in emigration and seasonal outwork migration
as a consequence. The key issue in economic and social modernisation was
competitive agriculture which could simultaneously provide a decent living
and the development of a healthy farming system as a criterion for the former,
and achieving the employment of a large workforce previously engaged in the
agricultural sector in factories due to accelerated industrialisation.
Asa result of gradual industrial developments by the Ministry of Trade from
the end of 1880s, which in turn were followed by agricultural developments in
the 1890s, the underdeveloped areas started to become comparable to the other
regions in the Central European area. Public intervention in the underdeveloped
regions was a regular undertaking, since in Austria the development of the
mountainous areas was concluded upon planned agricultural policies which
created the dairy industry in the Alpine region.
After previous occasional and sparse aid, public intervention in the
development of underdeveloped regions started to become official around the
turn of the century. The “aid action” taken by the Ministry of Agriculture was
shown to be the most efficient with the strongest long-term effects among all
public interventions. Ignác Darányi, the Head of the Ministry of Agriculture
(1895-1903 and 1906-1910), who while being a liberal was open to certain
elements of the agrarian-conservative approach, and his worthy successors
(Bela Talliän and Béla Serényi) personally oversaw the granting of preferential
aid to the eastern, north-eastern and northern regions in need, taking into
account the possible options regarding matters falling within the auspices of
the Ministry of Agriculture.’
The current study focuses on the state development of the agriculture
of the peripheral regions. From the end of the 19‘ century, the Ministry of
Agriculture introduced aid packages and regional industrial programmes
to develop these areas. The summary of the theoretical policies and actual
practices of the agricultural development programmes covering almost half
of the area of the historic Hungary is completed upon sources found in the
National Archives of Hungary, as well as statistical summaries and other
official documents of the dual era found in the same place. A high level of
importance is granted to the summaries about the state actions covering
several years. The aim of the study is to pinpoint the responsibility of the
Mariann Nagy : A magyar mezőgazdaság regionális szerkezete a 20. század elején, Budapest,
Gondolat, 2003, 262.
Imre Takács : Magyarország földművelésügyi közigazgatása az Osztrák-Magyar Monarchia
koraban, 1867-1918, Budapest, Mezőgazdasági Kiadó, 1989, 81-83.
* 242 +