Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/17

 the war and bought securities in all important chemical industries of Sweden, Holland, Spain, etc. What Germany lost in war, it will try to win hack by industrial war, and the new Republic of Czechoslovakia will be affected before every one else by this German economic and industrial offensive.

Every new factory or industrial plant in Czechoslovak or, other Slavic lands, every chemical laboratory will be an industrial Verdun against German economic expansion in Europe. Our political leaders, our army did their duty. The time is coming, when we shall need a big organization of Slav science, capital and labor, which would hold Czechoslovakia and the other Slav states safe against German autocracy and tyranny in economic and industrial life.

One of the remarkable things in the national rebirth of the Czechoslovak Nation is the development of its finances. Not quite fifty years ago all financial business in Bohemia was in the hands of the Germans; not a single bank was in Czech hands. To-day the state of the Czech banking business is approximately as follows:

There are thirteen large commercial banks. The first place among them belongs to the Živnostenská Banka (Industrial Bank), which has a capital of 100 million crowns and in addition to its Prague head quarters has 21 branches in all the important cities of the Czechoslovak lands, and also in Vienna, Trieste, Cracow, Lemberg and Belgrade. Another large commercial bank is the Credit Bank of Prague with a capital of 30 million crowns which operates principally in Galicia, Serbia and Bulgaria. In addition to commercial banks there are three banks who finance agricultural and industrial enterprises, namely the Bank of the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Mortgage Bank of Bohemia and the Mortgage Bank of Moravia. The Bank of the Kingdom of Bohemia issued in 1914, 636 million crowns of its bonds; it discounted 400 millions on drafts and acted as a sort of clearing house for other Czech commercial banks. In 1917 was founded the Union of Czech Banks of which 12 institutions are members; their combined deposits in July, 1917, amounted to 1,084,535,291 crowns.

In 1916 the Živnostenská Banka together with the Agricultural Bank and the Land Bank founded a General Association of Communal Economic Interests. This association financed 14 large factories and insurance companies, and besides 5 banks in Hungary and in the Jugoslav countries, as well as three sugar mills.

The table given below illustrates the economic strenght of the great Czech banks:

Czech finance would never have been able to defeat the competion of the German high finance, backed by the Austrian state, if it had not found support in the vast masses of the Czech population. The wise policy of Czech banks gained the confidence of the farmer and laborer and thus made possible the mobilization of the greatest part of the national wealth.

A part of the system are first of all simple loan associations on the Raifeisen plan which operate among a very small circle of clients and inculcate the habits of thrift. In 1910 there were 780 loan associations with a total capital of one billion crowns. Then there were regular savings banks. There numbers in 1912 was 173, and their capital 1,063,537,956 crowns.

All these small institutions employed the services of the great banks and knowing perfectly the needs of each districts and