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 On March 1 1921 the administration of Aden was transferred from the India Office to the Colonial Office, which also exercises political influence, in varying degrees, over the confederations of tribes inhabiting the interior as far as the Yemen frontier and over certain tribes of the Hadhramaut. The revenue in 1914–5 amounted to 87 lakhs of rupees (approx. £580,000), derived mainly from the Aden Port Trust Fund (£34,000), Aden Settlement Fund (£28,000), Local Supply Bills (£257,000), imperial and municipal receipts (£215,700), Post Office (£34,000), excise, customs and income tax. The expenditure in the same year was £556,000.

The value of the total trade (including specie) amounted to £8,526,000 (1913–4), and had increased to £10,045,000 in 1918–9 and £13,641,000 in 1919–20. Of the last amount, £7,124,000 represented exports and £6,517,000 imports. A very large proportion represents simple transhipment; but Aden is also the centre of the exporting and importing business of the Red Sea commercial region made up of the Hejaz, Asir, Yemen, Hadhramaut, Eritrea, Abyssinia and British and French Somaliland. The principal articles of import in 1919–20 were: cotton piece-goods and yarn £2,180,000, hides and skins £1,291,000, coal £626,000, grain and flour £541,000, coffee, sugar, tobacco, hardware, petroleum and provisions. The exports were: hides and skins £2,123,000, cotton foods £2,112,000, coffee £456,000, grain and pulse £329,000, tobacco £213,000 and salt £151,000. Local products, including kat, firewood, live animals, ghi, dates, honey, wax, gums and sesame oil, to the value of about £125,000, were exported in 1919–20. 1,065 steam vessels of aggregate tonnage 2,736,391 and sailing craft of tonnage 365,569 cleared in the year ending March 1919. The port is free except for a small duty on alcoholic liquors and intoxicating drugs. Licenses are required for the importation of petroleum and small arms and ammunition.

The water supply, formerly very uncertain and unsatisfactory, is mainly from reservoirs and from condensation. The reservoirs have a storage capacity of 8,000,000 gal. but the most effective supply is obtained by condensation of sea water. Six condensers yield 52,000 gal. daily.

Aden produces no foodstuffs. The only local industries are the preparation of salt (Italian and Indian concessions, with an output of 124,000 tons in 1916–7), the unhusking of Arabian coffee berries and the making of cigarettes from tobacco imported from Egypt. The main trade routes are:—to San'a, via Lahej, 227 m.; to Mocha and Hodeida, via Ta'izz, 299 m.; and to Makalla, via Nisab, 413 m.

During the World War, Turkey brought pressure to bear on certain of the tribes of the Aden Protectorate (see 1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Arabia) and in July 1915 a Turkish army several thousand strong advanced on Lahej, the 'Abdali capital (21 m. N.). A small British force sent to assist in its defence proved altogether inadequate and had to retreat to Aden. The Turks occupied Sheikh 'Othman, but were unable to threaten Aden itself. The loyal Sultan was killed. On July 20 of the same year reinforced Aden troops surprised the Turks at Sheikh 'Othman, inflicted on them considerable loss and they retired to Lahej. In Oct. and in Dec. cavalry had small affairs with enemy reconnoitring parties in which the latter were driven off. In Jan. 1916, owing to the Turks again despatching troops to coerce the tribes in the east of the Protectorate, a demonstration in support of the latter was made by the Aden column. It located the enemy force near the village of Subar (4 m. S.S.E. of Lahej), inflicted considerable loss on it, and the Turkish pressure was relieved. In Dec. 1917 the defensive line at Aden described an arc of about 11 m. radius and there had been constant patrol skirmishes and small actions which continued until the Armistice.

 ADLER, VIKTOR (1852–1918), Austrian politician, was born at Prague June 24 1852, the son of a well-to-do business man, who moved with his family to Vienna when the son was three years old. Here he studied at the Schotten-gymnasium, where he gathered round him a circle of fellow-students who thus early began to occupy themselves with political and social questions, their interest having been aroused by the works of Lassalle and by the events of 1866 and 1870. It was at this time, too, that the Social Democratic Labour movement first began to affect Austria. On the basis of the new law respecting combinations, passed during the era of Liberal-bourgeois reform, arose the first proletarian organizations, and the battles between the adherents of state assistance (Lassalle) and of self-help (Schultz-Delitzsch) were being publicly fought out. At the university Adler entered the German national students' association, "Arminia," became a member of the committee of the German Reading Union, and belonged to the national and democratic group of intellectuals who, since the middle of the 'seventies, had grouped themselves around the deputy Schonerer, and had formulated the so-called Linz programme (see also 1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pernerstorfer, Engelbert). He studied medicine, attaching himself especially to the psychiatrist Meynert, and in addition to his medical practice occupied himself with industrial hygiene. In his later career he continued to take special interest in public health questions. Intending to adopt factory inspection as a career, he went in 1883 to study in Switzerland and in London, where he came into close touch with Engels. On his return to Vienna, however, he turned entirely to politics. The Workmen's party, weakened by the general economic depression, by internal dissensions and by police prosecutions, had sunk into political insignificance. In the 'eighties the "Radicals" (Most, Peukert) and the "Moderates" were at daggers drawn. The Government of Count Taaffe, on the other hand, supporting itself on the lower middle classes, which held the balance of votes in Austria and especially in Vienna, introduced legislation for the organization of industry on the guild system. It attempted, indeed, to conciliate the working classes by social-political legislation on the German model, but at the same time used the excuse given by the methods of violence advocated by the Radicals to suspend the ordinary law in Vienna and certain other districts, as a preliminary to anti-Socialist and anti-Anarchist legislation. The ground being thus prepared by the Government, Adler undertook to restore unity in the ranks of Labour. In 1886 appeared his paper Gleichheit (Equality), eventually succeeded by the Arbeiterzeitung, the principal organ of the Social Democratic party, which Adler continued to conduct till his death. His object was to organize the workmen as a political party, and the best methods seemed to him to be those of public propaganda and open political warfare. The united Labour party (Arbeiterpartei) was to keep the socialistic ideal constantly in view, but was not to despise small gains. By his sound judgment, and his exceedingly clever handling of men, he succeeded, in spite of difficulties within and without the party, in reaching the first stage in the path he had marked out by carrying the whole party with him, in the last days of the year 1888, on the basis of a carefully weighed programme at the party meeting held at Hainfeld, Lower Austria. He was able to appear in July 1889 at the first congress of the Second International (of which he was from that time an official) as the representative of the united Austrian party; and the first May Day celebration (1890), the first of those imposing demonstrations by which he sought to give a striking proof of the will and the power of the working classes, showed that a new epoch had dawned for Austrian Social Democracy. Adler, who was repeatedly involved in legal proceedings and condemned to terms of several months' imprisonment for political offences, was from that time the acknowledged leader of the party.

In consequence of the ever-increasing extension of its industrial and political organization, in which Adler took an energetic part, the party obtained an increasing influence in public life, which was further increased by the division of the bourgeois parties on the nationality question. Adler understood how to make the best of these conditions. He regarded it as his first task to secure for the workmen representation in Parliament. After the three years' struggle for electoral reform (1893–6), which followed the proposals for the modification of the franchise put forward by the prime minister, Count Taaffe, some measure of electoral reform was secured. But it was insufficient, and it was only when the Government had decided that an extension of the franchise was the sole means by which the monarchy could be protected against the centrifugal forces of nationality, that Adler was able to use the impression made by the confusions in Hungary and the Russian revolution of 1905 to interpose with all his weight and help to secure the triumph of universal and equal suffrage (1907).

The Social Democratic party increased their representation from 11 deputies to 87. Adler himself entered the Diet of Lower Austria in 1902, and in 1905 was elected to the Reichsrat, where until his death he played an important part as chairman of the committee of the Social Democratic party and of the Social Democratic Deputies' Club, taking part in all important debates.

New dangers, due to the nature of the Austrian State with its rival nationalities, more than once threatened the unity of the