Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1871.djvu/60

 24

AUSTRIA.

The next important market for Austria is Turkey, the importations of which into the empire average 3,000,000/. in value, and the exports to which are above 5,000,000/. sterling. Turkey is followed in the commercial rank list, but at a long distance, by Italy and Russia. The commercial intercourse of Austria with the United Kingdom is comparatively small ; and it appears in the official returns even smaller than it is in reality, owing to the geographical position of the empire, which necessitates the transit of many Austrian goods des- tined for the British market, and vice versa, through other countries, as the exports or imports of which they come to figure. In the Board of Trade returns, therefore, only the direct exports and imports to and from Great Britain and Ireland, by way of the Austrian seaboard, Trieste, Illyria, Croatia, and Dalmatia, are given. The declared real value of these direct exports and imports in the ten years 1860 to 1869 is shown in the following table : —

Years

Exports from Austria to

Imports of British Home

Great Britain

Produce into Austria

&

&

1860

986,364

993.669

1861

718,100

816,202

1862

795,280

706.687

1863

454,048

864,736

1864

369,225

792,119

1865

677,521

724,648

1866

1,369,831

912,058

1867

1,203,660

963.952

1868

2,029,310

1,077,159

1869

2,276,806

1,341,102

The first year, 1860, in the above table is inclusive of the trade of Venice, accounting for the decline of exports and imports in the next following years.

The staple article exported to the United Kingdom from Austria is corn and flour, the total value of which, in the year 1869, amounted to 1,896,250/. This comprised maize, or Indian corn, valued 962,900/. ; wheat, valued 513,517/. ; wheat flour, valued 172,551/.; barley, valued 159,907/.; and oats, valued 87,375/. The remaining exports are made up chiefly of hemp, tallow, glass beads, olive oil, quicksilver, currants, wood, and wool.

The principal imports of British and Irish produce into Austria are cotton manufactures and iron, the former of the value of 469,976/., and the latter of 458,378/. Next in importance to cotton are woollen manufactures, of an average value of 51,000/. per annum.

The mineral riches of Austria are very great, but explored as yet only to a small extent. The following table gives the quantities of