Page:The Bohemian Review, vol2, 1918.djvu/62



When Bismarck said: “The master of Bohemia is the master of Europe”, he had in mind other than mere political considerations. The central location of the Bohemian lands has throughout history emphasized their economic importance. From the early Middle Ages the commercial roads between the West and East of Europe, as well as between the North and Southeast, led through Bohemia. And Bohemia is still an international crossroads. The direct road from Berlin to the Balkans and on to Bagdad leads through Prague and Brno to Vienna and Budapest. There lies the special significance of the fate of Bohemia for the victory or defeat of the Pangerman plans. A free Bohemia, and that means of course a Bohemia looking for support to the West, would block effectually the Berlin-Bagdad road right in its very first stages.

Taxes drawn from the Bohemian lands have been the principal support of the military strength of Austria-Hungary. Compare the following figures of the income of some of the smaller European states in 1912 (in millions of dollars):

Now the Bohemian lands, Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, paid in general taxes the sum of 138.6 million dollars: that does not include Slovakia for which the Hungarian statistics make no separate return. But if we allowed the Austro-Hungarian average of seven dollars per head in taxes, the share of the Slovaks would be twenty million, and the total tax burden of the Czechoslovak lands would amount to 158 million.

These figures, however, do not give a full account of the taxation burden borne by the Bohemian lands. The Austrian laws make it advantageous for big industrial concerns to have their central offices in Vienna. They pay their state taxes in Vienna, and since in Austria the provinces and municipalities support themselves principally by collecting a certain additional percentage of the direct state taxes, the result is that the City of Vienna and the Province of Lower Austria have comparatively low taxes, because they are able to assess for their own local purposes the big industries carried on in the Bohemian lands. In Bohemia the small taxpayers have to bear an increased burden, because the big taxpayers pay in Vienna. Often the householder in a Bohemian city has to pay 300% of the direct state tax for the support of his municipality, 75% for the support of the provincial government and 60% for county purposes. The financial system that has prevailed in Austria before the war was aimed at lightening the burdens of the Germans at the expense of the Slavs.

What a tremendous financial relief would be experienced by the Bohemian provinces, if they were freed from supporting the Austrian empire with its gay capital. Free Bohemia would rival Belgium or Holland in economic power.

With freedom Bohemia would push ahead at a wonderful pace. The lands of the Czechs are well populated. The density of population for all Austria is 72 to a square kilometer; in the Bohemian lands it is 132. Of the six Austrian cities with a population exceeding 100,000 three are Bohemian, not counting Vienna itself, where there are 300,000 Czechs. Of nine cities with population between 50,000 and 100,000 five are Bohemian.

One of the factors exerting great influence upon the industrial and commercial welfare of the state is the intelligence of the population. In this respect the Bohemians make the very best showing. Fortunately we have statistics on this very point compiled by American authorities. In the fiscal year 1914 the United States Immigration Service found that the percentage of illiteracy among immigrants of Magyar race was 10.2, among Germans 5.5, and among Bohemians 1.3. It is true, though, that among the Slovaks the percentage of illiteracy was 17.3. But it is not the Slovak race that should be blamed for that; it is the barbarous Magyar oligarchy which took away from the Slovaks all their public and private schools and is intent on Magyarizing every Slovak child.

Fifty years ago the Bohemian lands were overwhelmingly of an agricultural charac-