Procure for inspection specimens of raw silk and also of the choice textile goods made in these states.
CHAPTER XXVIII
EUROPE—THE DANUBE AND BALKAN STATES
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.