Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/53

 includes every conceivable variety of jewelry and novelties, such as brooches, pendants, belt buckles, hatpins, ear rings, rings and imitation diamonds. United States bought in 1906 $795,667 and to this might be added $330,481 worth of beads and $138,213 dress fasteners. A related industry is the making of lamps and chandeliers of which the United States bought $109,687 worth.

An important item of trade between Bohemia and America, and one which has an excellent change of growing, is that of linen goods; figures for 1913 are $518,065. Bohemian linen, laces and embroidery are found sold in this country as Irish linen and French or Belgian laces, because they are not so well known, but their quality is equal to anything produced in western Europe. Another important object of trade which could easily be increased is in ladies gloves, produced principally in Prague itself. The amount sold in 1913 was $274,521. Vienna also manufactures gloves and Prague has the opportunity now of capturing the business of its rival. A very promissing item of trade also is the export of musical instruments, principally violins, but also brass and reed instruments; the last figures are $200,116. Bohemia has the opportunity now to get the big American market which was before the war supplied principally from Germany and during the war by not very satisfactory instruments manufactured in Japan. And Czechoslovakia will also compete now with the Germans and Japanese for the American toy market. Musical toys especially have been exported from northern Bohemia to the United States, the value for 1913 being $85,841.

The woolen and cotton industry of Bohemia is highly developed, practically all the cotton mills of former Austria being located in Bohemia. But it would be too much to expect a great market for cotton and woolen goods in this country which is so well equipped in this industry. The principal market of the Czechoslovaks will be in the Balkans and in Russia. In 1913 the exports of woolen goods to America from Bohemia amounted to $131,096 and of cotton goods to $111,591. Carpets and rugs, mostly woolen, were sold to the United States to the value of $88,026.

In the statistical figures one finds an interesting item of $131,906 of books; no doubt mostly Czech books for our people in this country. Among similar items that seem to ofer a promise of bigger market in the United States are found chemicals to the value of $173,459. The Czechs have splendid chemists, fully equal to the best men in Germany, but it would take experts acquainted with present conditions in Bohemia and Germany to speak with more assurance about the growth of trade in this line between the two countries. Two other small items in the list of articles exported to the United States from Bohemia give promise of much growth—artificial flowers which the people in the old country are extremely skilled to produce and of which America bought $70,318 worth; and bent wood furniture, chairs with cane seats of which great quantities were manufactured before the war in Vienna, and also in Moravia. The Czechs ought to be able to compete in America with the Vienna manufacturers. An article of commerce the sale of which the Czechoslovak Government will hardly care to push is the export of human hair of which America bought $123,114. But it would seem that it would be possible to increase the sale in America of clover seed and sugar beet seed; of the former American bought $98,840 and of the latter $92,680 worth.

It is unfortunate that we do not know more of the present status of the industry and supplies of manufactured goods in Czechoslovakia. The new republic must buy tremendous amounts of food, clothing, raw materials for its factories and manu factured goods, and in return for them it must try to sell as much of its products as possible so as to avoid borrowing too freely. We know that the country has large supplies on hand of sugar and hops, and we know also that smaller items of Bohemian manufacture, like glassware, can find purchasers in this country immediately at an advance of several hundred percent over pre-war prices.

As to what America can sell to Czechoslovakia, a distinction must be drawn between immediate needs and the normal trade of the future. Like all the European countries, Bohemia needs urgently large quantities of food, lard and butter above all, flour, rice, coffee, meat, etc. Even more urgent seems to be the lack of shoes and clothing, for Prague newspapers complain that while the food ration has been increased, since the country rid itself of the Austrian yoke, no improvement is as yet to be perceived in the matter of getting shoes