Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/337

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. nearly 83 per cent, was owned or controlled by the Government. The foregoing table illustrates the growth of railway lines in Austria and Hun- gary during the last half century.

Merchant Marine. Cut oil' from the sea on all sides except for a small outlet on the Adri- atic, Austria-Hungary naturally falls behind all of the leading European countries in her mer- chant marine. In 1809 this comprised 12,005 vessels of 2'20.021 tons in Austria, and 404 ves- sels of 03,117 tons in Hungary. Of these, Aus- tria had 187 steamers of 101,924 tons. Austria employed altogether 32,575 seamen and Hungary but 2279. In 1884 the merchant marine of the entire monarchy consisted of 9206 vessels of 324,458 tons, employing 29,358 people; thus in fifteen years there was an increase of 42 per cent. in the number of vessels, bxit a decline in the total tonnage. In 1890, 123,000 vessels of 15,- 000.000 tons entered and cleared the 104 seaports of Austria-Hungary (of w'hich 93 belonged to Aus- tria and onlv 11 to Hungary), as against 85,000 vessels of ll",000,000 tons in" 1891. Nearly 90 per cent, of these vessels carried the Austro-Hungar- ian flag, next in the order of importance being those of Italy, Greece, and Great Britain. The most important seaports are Trieste in Austria and Fiume in the Kingdom of Hungary. The Danube is navigated by a large numljer of steam- boats throughout the whole of its course in Aus- tria-Hungary, and affords a great outlet to the Black Sea.

Commerce. The lofty mountains surrounding the country on nearly all sides and the small extent of its coast-line are great obstacles in the way of development of foreign commerce. On the other hand, the great diversity of natural re- sources in the two halves of the monarchy is especially favorable to an active internal trade. For purposes of commerce and trade, Austria and Hungary form a single customs union, main- tained by a mutual agreement. According to it the commercial relations of the two halves of the monarchy to each other and to foreign countries are exactly the same as in the case of the separate States of the United States; no im- port or export duties can be levied on goods going from one part of the monarchy to the other, and all duties on foreign goods are xmiform through- out the country. Nearly 1,000.000 people are em- ployed in commerce. Eighty-five per cent, of the entire foreign commerce is by land, and only 15 per cent, goes by water. The countries which share most in the trade with the monarchy are:

Germany (about 75% of the imports and 70% of the exports). Italy " iV2% ■• '• •• 6% " G'r'tBritaIn" 3% " " " 3% " Rumania " 3% " " " 2% " " HuBsia ■• 21/2% ■' " " *'/» " U'fd States " 2% " " " 2% " Servia '■ lVi% " " " VaVo -

Next come France, Switzerland, Turkey, etc. The following figures show the growth of for- eign commerce during the last decade of the Nineteenth Century:

^Austria-Hungary—. Tear Imports Exports 1890 $207,000,000 $313,000,000 1895 289,000,000 301,000,000 1898 333,000.000 328,0(X),000 1900 342,000,000 388,000.000

These show an increase for the decade of near- ly 68 per cent, in the value of the imports, but only of 24 per cent, in that of the exports. In 1900, of the total imports into the coun- try, 57 per cent, was raw material, 14 per cent, half-finished products, and 29 per cent, manufactured goods. On the other hand, of the total exports during the same year, only 35 per cent, consisted of the products of land, forests, and fisheries; 7 per cent, represented products of the mines and half-finished products of smelt- ing-works, etc.; and nearly 00 per cent, was manufactured goods. These few figures clearly show the predominating importance of manu- factures over agricultural and mining products in the exports of the country, .and reveal a tendency and growing ability to convert the raw products, both domestic and foreign, into finished products before calling in the aid of foreign man- ufactures for the satisfaction of the wants of the population. That this is a growing tendency is shown by the fact that there was an increase of 9 per cent, in the value of the imports of raw products in 1900 as compared with 1899, and at the same time a decline of 2 per cent, in the ex- ports; while there was a falling off of 1.3 per cent, in the value of the imports of half-finished products and an increase of per cent, in the ex- ports: and a decrease of about one-half of one per cent, in the value of the imports of manufactured products and an increase of 5 per cent, in the exports.

The United States, as shown above, ranks si.xth in the foreign commerce of Austria-Hun- gary, and, on the other hand, the latter country ranks tenth in our own foreign commerce. It is interesting to trace the growth of trade be- tween the United States and Austria-Hungary during the last decade. In 1890 its total value was .$12,906,000, in 1900 it increased to $16,- 126,000, or an increase of nearly 25 per cent, in a decade. But the exports of Austria-Hun- gary to the United States during that period suf'ered a decline of $2,500,000, or 21 per cent., while the exports of the United States to Aus- tria-Hungary increased by nearly $6,000,000, or more than 33 per cent. The following table shows the fluctuations of the Austro-American trade during that decade :

Year ending June 30 1891.. 1892.. 1893.. 1894.. 1895.. 1896.. 1897.. 1898.. 1899.. 1900..

Imports into Exports from Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary from tlie into tlie United States United States

$1,311,000 $11,696,000 1.627,000 7.719,000 671,000 10,055,000 628,000 6,896,000 2,126,000 6,510,000 2,440,000 7,644,000 4,023,000 8,168,000 6,697.000 4,717,000 7,379,000 6,651,000 7,047,000 9,080,000

The chief articles of import from the United States are cotton, and some machinery' and other manufactured goods, while Austria-Hungary ex- ports to us mainly beet sugar, glassware,' pot- tery, furniture, millinery, jewelry, and beans.

. The banking system of the monarchy is quite simple. It centres in the Austro-Hungarian Bank, with headquarters at Vienna and Budapest, 71 branches in the principal cities of the country, and agencies in many other towns. This bank has the exclusive privilege of issuing paper money, and to that extent exercises even a more complete control over the monetary situation