Page:Edvard Beneš – Bohemia's case for independence.pdf/119

This page has been validated.
ENGLAND AND BOHEMIA
105

exports of the Habsburg Monarchy to France to 80,532,000 kronen annually. As to the French Colonies, the figures of their trade are, according to official statistics, much inferior to those of the British Colonies, the import to Austria-Hungary being 7,230,000 kronen and the export 5,004,000 kronen.

If the economic relations with France of the future Czecho-Slovak State already occupy the minds of commercial men in France, those concerned with British commerce obviously cannot remain indifferent to the future fate of Bohemia. Both from the political and the economic point of view, the English should not allow considerations of such importance to escape them.

During recent years quite a number of Czech economists, business men, manufacturers, and young lawyers at the outset of their career have come to England to make themselves familiar with English methods of industry, commerce, and high finance, thus at the same time strengthening the economic relations and becoming living ties between their native country and Great Britain.

We could multiply our arguments, accumulate figures, describe in greater detail the trade between England and the Czech countries in the past, and the prospects for the future. But the few examples cited are sufficient to give a general idea of the