559. Commerce of the Balkan States.—Conditions have been rapidly changing, as railroads and steamers have reached the peoples of the Balkans, and have brought them in touch with the advanced civilization of the West. The commerce of the Balkans, however, has been as yet important rather by its promise than by its performance. The total commerce between the contiguous states Servia and Bulgaria amounted in 1882 to less than a million dollars. The aggregate commerce of the four Balkan countries, Roumania, Bulgaria, Servia and Greece, in 1910-11, amounted to considerably less than one per cent of the total trade of the world, and was exceeded by the commerce of Sweden or Spain or even of the little country Denmark. The foreign commerce of the kingdom of Greece depended almost entirely on one product, the so-called Zante currant, a seedless raisin which got the name of currant from Corinth, whence it was carried to the island of Zante. The pig took in Servia a position almost equal in importance to that of the currant in Greece; great herds of swine were kept in the oak forests, and contributed largely to the chief export, that of animal products. On the plains of Roumania wheat was grown for export by a wretched population of tenants and laborers, who were still serfs until 1864. The governments of some of the states have endeavored by protective tariffs and various privileges to stimulate the growth of a mining and manufacturing industry; but the countries of the Balkan Peninsula will find in agriculture their chief resource for a long time to come, and will develop their commerce most rapidly by exchanging their surplus of raw products for the manufactures of central and western Europe.
QUESTIONS AND TOPICS
1. Character of internal trade in Russia. [Wallace, chap. 12; Palmer, chaps. 10-12; Schierbrand, chap. 9.]
2. The period of Mongol rule and its effects. [Wallace, chap. 14; Rambaud, History of Russia, N. Y., Burt, $2, vol. 1, chap. 10; Thompson, chap. 2; Noble, chap. 3.]
3. Condition of people and production in the time of serfdom. [Wallace, chap. 28; Palmer, chap. 5.]
4. Traveling by roads and rivers in modern Russia [Wallace, chap. 1.]
5. The Crimean War. [Seignobos, chap. 27, first part.]
6. The period of reforms. [Wallace, chap. 27.]
7. Faults of the Russian administration. [Wallace, chap. 24, Schierbrand, chap. 11; Thompson.]
8. Emancipation of the serfs. [Wallace, chap. 29; Thompson, chap. 4; Noble, chap. 7.]