Page:The Bohemian Review, vol1, 1917.djvu/48

 factories. This feature is especially characteristic of the north of Bohemia. The Bohemian postal system yields 52% of the total profits.

In banking and exchange the Bohemian lands used to be dependent on Vienna, but they have been emancipated since 1895, and, during these 20 years, the capital of the Bohemian banks has increased seven-fold, having risen from 48 mill, to 336 mill. crowns. And it must be remembered that the chief source of the banking capital of Vienna is the trade with the Bohemian lands. The development of Bohemian trade has, during the last few years, been exceedingly rapid.

The Slovak territory in the north of Hungary is very different. It is mostly agricultural, as yet comparatively undeveloped, and as the country is very hilly and the methods of cultivation obsolete, it is much poorer than the other Bohemian lands. The southern part, being less hilly, is fertile enough, producing, indeed, very good wine; and as the hilly north has much natural wealth in the form of iron ore, great forests, etc., which is as yet unexploited, the country could be industrialised to great advantage. It could supply the other Bohemian lands with the commodities of which they are short, such as iron ore, copper and tin; and finally, the country is good for sheep and cattle raising. This territory is very similar to Silesia, the larger part of which is now industrial, and could be turned to the same use.

Nor must we forget the wealth of the compounds of uranium and radium, mined at Joachimsthal, nor the baths at Karlsbad, Franzensbad and Marienbad, Teplitz, Poděbrady, Mšene, Luhačovice and Pistany. Bohemian territory is, in this respect, one of the richest countries in the world. In short, except for salt, mercury and naphtha, the Bohemian lands have an abundance of everything necessary for cultural development, so that, as an independent country, they would be quite self-sufficing, and would, moreover, be able to export not only their agricultural, but a great part of their industrial products as well.

From the point of view of modern political economy, Bohemia may be said to be an ideal country, being in possession of all the necessary conditions for putting into practice the modern theories of free trade and protectionism. It has great possibilities of realising that harmony between agriculture and industry, that economic self-sufficiency which, by many theorists, is put forward as a postulate for forming even the smallest autonomous State cf. the chapter on free trade in Gide’s “Political Economy.”

In emergencies such as war the Bohemian lands would also be thoroughly competent to hold their own, both agriculturally as well as industrially.

The natural and industrial riches of the Bohemian lands, making possible as they do a very heavy system of taxation, have always formed the financial foundation of the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy. The population of the Bohemian lands is much denser, and the whole standard of life is much higher than that of the other lands of Austria.

The following table illustrates the Bohemian contribution on the basis of direct taxation to the Austrian finances:—

The Bohemian lands and the other Austrian lands (not counting Lower Austria and Vienna) have 25.04 million inhabitants, in the proportion of 40.5% and 59.5% respectively. Lower Austria is placed separately, because the position of Vienna, as the capital, is a privileged one; it is the real centre of Bohemian industry and export trade. Many Czech undertakings have their central offices and rights of domicile there because the scale of taxation and the municipal rates of Vienna are lower than in Bohemia.

That explains why the rateability of Bohemia tends to drop, while that of Vienna and Lower Austria tends to rise. If we could include those figures in the statistics, and if we entered the precise rateability of those Bohemian undertakings that are domiciled in Vienna, in the archives of the Bohemian lands, the difference would be still more in our favor. But even as it is, the rateability of the Bohemian lands is 11.90 crowns per head, whereas in the rest of the Austrian lands it is only six crowns.

Still more significant are the statistics of indirect taxation in Austria (taxes on beer, sugar, spirits, salt, paraffin, tobacco, and excise taxes, etc.). With the exception of