Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 17.djvu/261

This page needs to be proofread.

CZSCROSLOVAKIA


245


OZECHOSLOVAXIA


1912. Two yean later the Oxford University Frees published her "Aboriginal Siberia," with a preface by Doctor Aiarett. As the Mary Ewart Traveling Scholar of Somerville, she went with the anthroj^o- logical expedition organised by Oxford University and the Philadelphia University Museum to the Yenisei Valley in Siberia, living for a year with the Samoyed and Tungus tribes within the arctic circle. In 1916 she published an account of her travels in her book "My Siberian Year/' a serious contribution to the knowledge of the primitivA tribes of Northern Asia. This was followed in 1919 bv 'The Turks of Central Asia in History and at the Present Day," a volume that is used as a reference book by the Forei|^ Office. Miss Czap- licka was an accomplished Imguist, and her essays on Asiatic and anthropological subjects were written in English, RussiaxL and Polish. She was an honorary member of- Lady Margaret Hall, Mary Ewart lecturer in Ethnology, ana a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

Oiechosloyakla, new republic formed after the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian empire, of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Slovakia, and autono- mous Ruthenia. It is bounded by Germany and Poland on the north, by Germany, Austria, Hungary and Rumania on the south, and by Germany on the west.

The area and population of the various provinces, according to the census of 1919, were:


Area

Square

MUes


Bohemia

Moravia

Silesia

Slovakia

Ruthenia

German and Austrian territories assigned to Czechoslovakia by the Peace Conference

Totel


Population


6,768,548 2,622,271

608,128 2,952346

572,028


111,569 13,636,390


For the area and population of the various provinces comprising Czechoslovakia, no late statistics are available, except for Slovakia, which in November, 1919, showed a population of 2,940,374, including 2,141,000 Slovaks, 665,000 Magyars, and 140,322 Uermans. The principal cities, with their estimated population on 30 June, 1914, are: Prague and environs, 550,000; Brno, 135,000; Pilsen, 85,000; Pressburg, 85,000; Kosice, 48,000; Ostrava, 42,000; Ldberec, 40,000; Usti, 40,000; Budejovice, 40,000. In all Czechoslovakia there are about 6,700,000 Czechs, 2,000,000 Slovaks, 900,000 Magyars, 3300,000 Germans, 400,000 Russians and Ruthenians, and 130,000 Poles.

EooNOMic SrruATioN.-»Agriculture is highly de- veloped in Czechoslovakia. The crop yield has almost come up to the pre-war standard. In the crownlands formerly Austrian, but now belonginjs to Czechoslovakia, about half the entire area is devoted to agriculture. Cattle raising is carried on on a large scale; in spite of this, however, the country is unable to supply all its own foodstuff requirements, as during the war the yield of the sou diminished, and the stocks of cattle suffered severely. The country contains both pit coal and lignite. The pit coal output comprises about five- sixths of the total output of what was once Austria. Before the war it averaged 12J2 million tons, dur-


ing the war it fell 'off considerably, but in 1920 it increased again to 11.1 million tons. In the latter year 1.4 million tons of coke were produced. The lignite output, which before the war averaged 21 mimon tons, in 1920 amounted to 19.7 million tons. In consequence of the reduced activities of the industries induced by the world's economic crisis, Czechoslovakia has a surplus of lignite and has reduced the export duties to stimulate its ex- portation. In 1919 the number of coal mines was 366; of employees, 110,233. The iron ore deposits are not very rich and may well be exhausted in fifty prears. The gold and silver output of old Austna has fallen almost exclusively to Czecho- slovakia. The output of radium-containinff ores is of great importance, and in Bohemia and Moravia there are large deposits of kaolin and clay. The kaolin is of great importance to the German porce- lain industry, 68,000 tons of the entire output (91,000 tons) going to Germany.

Of the entire industries of the former Austria- Hungary four-fifths are now to be found in Czecho- slovakia. On account of the large decrease in population, all branches are forced to rely to a large extent on export. The number of factories in 1920 was 8,833, ot which 2,000 were textile mills, 1,755 glass works and precious stone factories, 1,358 for food production, 674 for furniture and bent wood manufacture, 595 machine factories, 592 for metal manufacture, 297 paper mills, 458 chemical fac- tories. A considerable part of the industries are in the hands of the Germans; in Bohemia nearly 47% of the industrial workers and 45% of the home workers are found in German districts. For 1919 the imports amounted to 6,555,418,562 Morten and the exports to 5,323,621,196 kronen. The imports, which consisted chiefly of cereals, cottons, woolena and leather, came principally from Italy, the United States, Jugodavia, Germany, Austria, and Switzer- land; the exports, consisting chiefly of sugar, tim- ber, fruit, dasB, and iron, went to Austria, JVance, Germany, Poland, Great Britain, and Norway.

There are 8,297 miles of railway line in Czecho- slovakia, of which 4,928 miles are owned by the State and the remaining 3,369 miles are privately owned.

It was the policy of the Austrian and Hungarian governments to separate Slovakia from its kindred countries, Bohemia and Moravia, and to bind it by a net of railways to the center of Hungary. The old government therefore constructed railway lines extending from Budapest, from north to south; only here and there were tracks built in a different direc- tion, but without any interconnection, the only aim being to increase the traffic towards the Magyar center. The new Czechbslovakian government has

glans not only to change this system in order to ind Moravia, Slovakia, and Bohemia more closely, but to improve the bad condition of the rolling stock. The Peace Treaty gave the Czechoslovak state the right to use certain wharves in the ports of Hamburg and Stettin. The chief port on the Danube is Bratislava (Pressburg); on the Elbe, Usti <Au88ig) and Decin Testchen).

The debts of Czechoslovakia fall into five cate- gories: (1) debts resulting from the war; (2) the nation's share of Austria-Hungary's pre-war debts; (3) tax of liberation, i. e., contribution to the war expenses of the allies; (4) internal debt; (5) loans of the new republic, totaling on 31 December, 1919, 3,500,000,000 francs of foreign debt and 25,000,000,000 crowns of internal debt. A Board of Audit and Control was constituted in March, 1919, to take charge of state economy, state property, and the national debt. At the beginning of 1922 the krone