Commercial Geography Part 31

In spite of the fact that Switzerland has no available coal,[74]

manufacture is pre-eminently the industry of the state. During the long winters the Alpine herdsman and his family whittle out wooden toys from the stock of rough lumber laid by for the purpose. Farther down in the valley-lands the exquisite brocades and muslins are made on hand-looms, or by the aid of the abundant water-power. Each industrial district has its special line of manufacture, so that there is scarcely an idle day in the year.

In the cities and towns of the lowland district, watches, clocks, music-boxes, and fine machinery are manufactured. For many years Swiss watches were about the only ones used in the United States, but on account of the compet.i.tion of American watches this trade has fallen off. The mechanical music-player, operated by perforated paper, has also interfered with the trade in music-boxes.

Switzerland is provided with excellent facilities for transportation, and this has done about as much for the commercial welfare of the state as all other industrial enterprises. In proportion to its area, the railway mileage is greater than that of the surrounding states. The roads are well built and the rates of transportation are low.

In addition to the ordinary trip-tickets, monthly time-tickets are issued to travellers, allowing the holders to travel when and where they please within the limits of the state on all roads and lake-steamers.

These are sold to the traveller for about two-thirds the price of the 1,000-mile book of the American railway. The carriage roads have no superiors, and they penetrate about every part of the state below the snow line; they also cross the main pa.s.ses of the Alps.

Through one or another of these pa.s.ses most of the foreign traffic of the state must be carried. To Genoa and Milan it crosses the Alps via the St. Gotthard tunnel, or the Simplon Pa.s.s;[75] to Paris it goes by the Rhone Valley; between Vienna and Switzerland, by the Arlberg tunnel; and to Germany or to Amsterdam through the valley of the Main.

As a result of this most excellent system of transportation, Switzerland is thronged with visiting tourists at all times of the year; moreover, it has always been the policy of the Swiss Government not only to provide for them, but also to make the country attractive to them. The result has shown the wisdom of the policy. Indeed, the foreign tourist has become one of the chief sources of income of the Swiss people, and the latter profit by the transaction to the amount of about forty million dollars a year.

About all the raw material used in manufacture must be imported. The cotton is purchased mainly from the United States, and enters by way of Ma.r.s.eille. The raw silk is purchased from Italy, China, and j.a.pan. Coal, sugar, food-stuffs, and steel are purchased from Germany, and this state supplies about half the imports. From the United States are purchased wheat, cotton, and coal-oil.

The manufactures are intended for export. The fine cotton textiles sold to the United States are worth far more than the raw cotton purchased therefrom. Silk textiles, straw wares, toys, watches, jewelry, and dairy products are leading exports. The surrounding states are the chief buyers, and none of them competes with Switzerland to any extent in the character of the exports.

_Geneva_, situated at the head of the Rhone Valley, is the chief trade depot; it is noted especially for the manufacture of watches, of which many hundred thousand are made yearly. _Zurich_ is the centre of manufactures of textiles and fine machinery. The silk-brocade industry is centred chiefly in this city and _Basel_.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

Why did not France prosper commercially prior to the time of the revolution of 1793?

What are the chief natural advantages of the state in favor of commercial development?

In what ways have the natural disadvantages of Switzerland been overcome?

How has the loss of her colonies affected the industrial development of Spain?

Comparing Spain and Italy, which has the better situation with reference to the Suez Ca.n.a.l traffic?

From the Statesman's Year-Book find the amount of foreign trade of each state.

From the Abstract of Statistics find the trade of each one with the United States.

FOR COLLATERAL READING AND REFERENCE

Adams's New Empire, pp. 160-168.

Fiske's Discovery of America, Vol. II, Chapter XI.

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 Ca.n.a.l 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 part.i.tion, is a part of the great Russian plain. Bohemia, which derives its name from the Keltic peoples, whom Caesar 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, r.e.t.a.r.ds 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 pa.s.sage 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 compet.i.tion of Russia and Roumania have r.e.t.a.r.ded 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 ma.s.s 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 gla.s.sware, both of which are widely exported. The sand, fluxes, and coloring minerals of Bohemian gla.s.sware 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 Ca.n.a.l (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 pa.s.sage from Vienna northward; the Iron Gate, through which the Danube flows, is the route to the Black Sea; Semmering Pa.s.s 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 gla.s.sware. 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, gla.s.sware, 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 gla.s.s 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 const.i.tute 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 s.h.i.+pped 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TURKEY AND GREECE]

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HARBOR OF CONSTANTINOPLE]