Textile industry is one of the most important. Cotton spinning in eastern Bohemia and northern Slovakia is carried on in 90 cotton mills with about 4 million spindles and 130,000 looms. The number of employees is 400,000 and the consumption of cotton is 110,000 metric tons annually. Woollen industry is concentrated in Brno (Brunn) and in eastern Bohemia, with 1 million spindles and 33,000 looms; employees number 56,000 and 52,000 tons of wool and 15,000 tons of rags arc brought from abroad for manufacture in the Czechoslovak Republic. There are 25 factories for flax manufacturing with 280,000 spindles and 15,000 workmen; jute is worked over in 15 factories with 6,000 employees; hemp is spun on 6000 spindles by 2000 workmen. About 10,000 workers make carpets from jute and wool.
Garment workers in large shops number 2000, embroidery and Bohemian lace are made at home in many parts of the country, and especially in Slovakia, Bohemian-Moravian highlands and western Bohemia; about 10,000 women make the beautiful Bohemian laces. Weaving of straw hats gave employment to 1200 workers, and making of linen hats and fezzes for the Turkish empire was carried on in 24 factories with 5000 employees.
Underwear for men is made in 14 large plants with 9000 workers and 6000 men and women working at home; the product was for the most part exported. About 150 smaller establishments make underwear for women, especially embroidered garments.
Paper making in view of the extensive forests is highly developed, and in addition to print paper, cardboard and cellulose there was made parchment paper, cigarette paper, coated paper, cartons, etc.
In a country, where everyone can read and does read, publishing business is bound to be important. With this is connected the graphic industry, centered in Prague, which has been making for foreign countries great quantities of colored posters and other advertising matter. But printing machinery is for the most part imported.
Musical instruments, especially cheaper grades, are made extensively in western Bohemia; some 5000 workmen are employed either in the factories or at home. They make cheap string and brass instruments and export them to many countries. Toys are made in many parts of the country in the homes of the people and the industry gives employment to some 10,000 people; the toys are wooden, paper and tin. Another domestic industry is button making from mother of pearl; hair nets are made in some parts of eastern Bohemia.
Tobacco is a state monopoly, concentrated in a few big factories, and the amount consumed annually and imported from abroad is about 10,000 tons.
This brief survey makes it evident that the Czechoslovak Republic is on the whole an industrial country and has to import in normal times large quantities of raw and partly manufactured materials. Its foreign commerce will exceed that of any other country to the southeast of Germany.
WHAT MR. CRANE SAW IN PRAGUE.
To an experienced traveler who will compare Bohemia not with America, but with Europe, it is a surprise to cross the boundaries of this new republic—a transition from chaos to order, from misery to comparative affluence. Charles R. Crane, former Chicago manufacturer and philanthropist, recently a member of the American mission to the Near East, tells his impressions of the Czechoslovaks in the Chicago Daily News. He says:
“The little Czecho-Slovak state is the healthiest and sanest place in Europe. Alhough its people are Slavs, they have long lived close enough to the Germans to acquire habits of thrift, order and discipline without losing their Slavic grace. They are good farmers and good managers of industrial enterprises, yet they have the artistic note. President Masaryk, in his address on July 4, said there were as many kinds of democracy as there were peoples, but he would accept the American kind as ideal. His address at the University of Chicago about fifteen years ago on the philosophy of the government of a small nation made a profound impression. He is now applying that philosophy with great success.
“The whole attitude of this strong little people and especially its industry and devotion are in the greatest possible contrast with the processes of its great Slavic relative (Russia) to the east. Although Czecho-Slovakia is a young and inexperienced state, there is order instead of chaos. Construction and not destruction is the main note, and murder, either as a pastime or as a governmental function, has no existence. There is no trace of the amateur imperialism characterizing many of the other small states and some of the medium sized ones. The people are keeping their heads and are not too much dismayed when things go against them, as in the case of the Teschen decision.”
