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 ease 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 uniform 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: 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 60 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 6 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 all increase of 5 per cent. in the exports.
The United States, as shown above, ranks sixth 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 suffered 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: These show an increase for the decade of ly 68 per cent. in the value of the imports, but 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.