The Danube and Balkan states derive their commercial importance partly from the large area in which bread-stuffs may be produced, and also because the valley of the Danube has become an overland trade-route of growing importance between the Suez Canal and the North Sea.

Austria-Hungary.—This empire is composed of the two monarchies, Austria and Hungary, each practically self-governed, but united under a single general government. The greater part of the country is walled in by the ranges of the Alps and the Carpathian Mountains.

The region known as the Tyrol is topographically continuous with Switzerland, and the people have Swiss characteristics. Galicia, northeast of the Carpathian Mountains, the fragment of Poland that fell to Austria at the time of partition, is a part of the great Russian plain. Bohemia, which derives its name from the Keltic peoples, whom CÆsar called the Boii, comprises the upper part of the Elbe river-basin. Its natural commercial outlet is Germany, but the race-hatred which the Czechs have for the Germans, retards commercial progress. Hungary is a country of plains occupying the lower basin of the Danube. The Huns are of Asian origin. Austria proper occupies the upper valley of the Danube, adjoining Germany; the country and the people are Germanic.

To the student of history it is a surprise that a country of such diverse peoples, having but little in common save mutual race-hatred, should hold together under the same general government. The explanation, however, is found in the topography of the region. The basin of the Danube is a great food-producing region, and the upper valley of the Elbe River forms the easiest passage from the Black to the Baltic Sea. The topography therefore gives the greater part of the country commercial unity.

The climate and surface of the low plains of Hungary are much the same as those of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Grain-growing and stock-raising are the chief employments. High freight rates, a long haul, and the competition of Russia and Roumania have retarded the development of these industries, however. Bohemia is likewise a grain-growing country, and the easy route into Germany through the Elbe Valley makes the industry a profitable one. Bohemia is also in the sugar-beet area.

There is an abundance of coal in Austria, but most of it is unfit for the manufacture of iron and steel. Steel manufacture, however, is carried on, the industry being protected by the distance from the German steel-making centres. The lead-mines about Bleiberg (or "Leadville") are very productive; at Idria are the only quicksilver-mines in Europe that compete with those of Almaden, Spain. The salt-mines near Krakow are in a mass of rock-salt twelve hundred feet thick.

Most of the manufactured products are for home consumption. American cotton and home-grown wool supply the greater part of the textiles. The flour-mills are equipped with the very best of machinery, and much of the product is for export to Germany and the countries to the south. The manufactures that have made the state famous, however, are gloves and glassware, both of which are widely exported. The sand, fluxes, and coloring minerals of Bohemian glassware are all peculiar to the region, and the wares, therefore, cannot be imitated elsewhere. The gloves are made from the skins of Hungarian sheep and goats.

The railways are not well organized, and the mileage is insufficient for the needs of the country. Ludwig Canal (in Germany) connects the Danube with the Main, a navigable tributary of the Rhine; the Elbe is navigable from a point above Prague to the Baltic; the Moravian Gate opens a passage from Vienna northward; the Iron Gate, through which the Danube flows, is the route to the Black Sea; Semmering Pass and its tunnel is the gateway to the ports of the Adriatic. These great routes practically converge at Vienna, which also is the great railway centre of the empire.

The foreign trade consists mainly of the export of food-stuffs (of which sugar and eggs are heavy items), fine cabinet ware, woollen textiles (made from imported wool), barley and malt, and fine glassware. Much of the German and Italian wine is sent to market in casks made of Austrian stock; the coal goes mainly to Italy. The imports are raw cotton from the United States and Egypt, wool, silk, and tobacco. Coal is both exported and imported. The United States sells to Austria-Hungary cotton, pork, and corn—buying porcelain ware, glassware, and gloves, amounting to about one-fifth the value of the exports.

Vienna, the capital, is the financial centre and commercial clearing-house of central Europe; it has also extensive manufactures. Budapest is the great focal point of Hungarian railways and commerce. Prague controls the coal, textile, and glass trade of Bohemia. Lemberg is the metropolis of Galicia. The states of Liechtenstein, Bosnia, and Herzegovina are commercially under the control of Austria.

The Lower Danube States.—Roumania and Bulgaria, the plain of the lower Danube, are enclosed by the Carpathian and Balkan ranges. They constitute a great wheat-field whose chief commercial outlets are the Iron Gate into Germanic Europe, and the Sulina mouth of the Danube into the Black Sea. The growing of maize for home consumption and wheat for export form the only noteworthy industries. Most of the grain is shipped up the Danube and sold in Great Britain and Germany.

From the Iron Gate to the Black Sea the Danube is held as an international highway, and the control of its navigation is directed by a commission of the various European powers, having its head-quarters at Galatz, Roumania.

In the Balkan Mountains is the famous Vale of Roses which furnishes about half the world's supply of attar-of-roses. The petals of the damask rose are pressed between layers of cloth saturated with lard. The latter absorbs the essential oil, from which it is easily removed. About half a ton of roses are required to make a pound of the attar. Kazanlik, noted also for rugs, is the great market for attar. Galatz and Rustchuk are grain-markets and river-ports; from the latter a railway extends to Varna, the chief port of the Black Sea. From Sofia, near the Bulgarian frontier, a trunk line of railway extends through Budapest to western Europe.

Turkey-in-Europe.—The European part of the Ottoman Empire has long been politically known as the "Sick Man" of Europe, and so far as the industries and commerce of the state are concerned, there is no excuse for its separate existence as a state. Its political existence, however, is regarded as a necessity, in order to prevent the Russians from obtaining military and naval control of the Mediterranean and Black Seas, and thereby becoming a menace to all western Europe. Less than one-half the people are Turks; the greater part of the population consists of Armenians, Jews, Magyars, and Latins.

Most of the country is rugged and unfit for grain-growing. The internal government is bad, the taxes are so ruinous that the agricultural resources are undeveloped, and every sort of farming is primitive. In many instances the taxes levied on the growing crops become practical confiscation when they are collected. Much of the cultivable land is idle because there are no means of getting the crops to market.

Grapes and wine, silk, opium, mohair and wool, valonia (acorn cups used in tanning leather), figs, hides, cigarettes, and carpets are the leading exports, and these about half pay for the American cotton textiles, woollen goods, coal-oil, sugar, and other food-stuffs imported. Choice Mocha coffee is imported for home use, and poorer grades are exported. Most of the foreign commerce is in the hands of English and French merchants. Armenians, Jews, and Greeks are the native middlemen and traders.

The native population is subject to the Sultan, whose rule is absolute; most foreign merchants and residents are permitted by treaties to remain subject to the regulations of the consuls.

Constantinople is the capital. Its situation on the Bosphorus is such that under any other European government it would command a tremendous foreign commerce. It is naturally the focal point of the trade between Europe and Asia. A trunk line of railway connects the city with Paris. Salonica is the port of western Turkey, and is likewise connected by rail with western Europe. A great deal of the foreign commerce of the state is now landed at this port.

The chief possessions of the Ottoman Empire are Asia Minor, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Arabia.

Greece.—Greece is a rugged peninsula, no part of which is more than forty miles from the sea. The country is without resources in the way of coal, timber, or available capital. Its former commercial position, in ancient times, was due largely to the silver-mines near Ergasteria, and subsequently to the gold-mines of eastern Macedonia; these, however, are no longer productive.

There is but little land suitable for farming, and not far from one-half the bread-stuffs must be imported. Much of the timber has been destroyed, and this has resulted in a deterioration not only of the water-power, but of the cultivable lands as well. The railway lines are short and their business is local; there are practically no trunk line connections with the great centres of commerce.

The harbors and the natural position of the country are its best remaining resources. The Greeks are born sailors, and the country is in the pathway of European and Asian commerce. Most of the grain-trade between the Black and Mediterranean Seas is controlled by Greek merchants, and the Greeks are everywhere in evidence in the carrying trade of the Mediterranean. The construction of the Corinthian canal has also given Greek commerce a material impetus.

The chief exports are Corinthian grapes—commonly known as "currants"—fruit, and iron ore from Ergasteria. Great Britain, France, and Belgium are the chief buyers of the fruit-crop. The exports scarcely pay for the American cotton, Russian wheat, and the timber products that are purchased abroad. There has been a material growth in the manufacture of cotton, woollens, and silk in the past few years, much of the work being done in households. Athens is the capital and largest city. The PirÆus and Patras are the chief ports.

Servia and Montenegro are stock-growing countries. The former has suffered greatly from misgovernment and the waste of its resources. Wine-cask stock and cattle are sold to Austria, which has five-sixths of its trade. Belgrade is its metropolis. Tobacco and live-stock are exported from Montenegro to Austria.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

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