into the Eastern Orthodox Church of the Russian Empire.
In the economic respect, German Poland is an agricultural country. Polish Silesia, however, which possesses the richest coal-fields on the European continent, is one of the most important mining and industrial districts in the German Empire. It is the country of the richest coal-fields in Europe, and produces coal to the amount of fifty-one million tons per annum. Those industries are wholly in German hands, the Poles supplying only the labour.
Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, Galicia (Austrian Poland) lived exclusively on its agriculture, being a country with the densest rural population in Europe. Latterly it began to develop industrially notwithstanding the fact that it has a very dense and poor rural population and that the country had to struggle not only against the competition of other parts of the Habsburg Monarchy but also against the policy of the Austrian Government, which in the past destroyed the country's industry and which even at present hinders its industrial development by means of taxation and differential tariffs on transport.
Industries have the most favourable conditions in the Kingdom of Poland, which has an open market for its industries in Russia and in Asia. This part of Poland may be called half-agricultural, its industry and commerce supplying the half of its revenues.
Polish civilisation developed under Western influences. At first they were those of the Roman Church, then those of Mediaeval Germany, later those of the Italian Renascence (fifteenth and sixteenth century).
