in Hungary. (3) The textile industry, nearly 500,000 persons, less than one-fifteenth employed in Hungary. (4) Building trades, nearly 400,000, less than one-fourth of whom are employed in Hungary. (5) Some 325,000 people are engaged in wood-working, less than a third of them in Hungary. (6) The iron and steel works of the monarchy furnish employment to 300,000 people, nearly 30 per cent. of whom are in Hungary. (7) The quarries and potteries of the monarchy keep some 150,000 people busy, less than one-tenth of them in Hungary. (8-10) Finally, machine-building and tool and implement making, and the paper and leather industries each give work to more than 100,000 people; less than one-third of these are employed in Hungary.
The mere enumeration of the principal industries of Austria-Hungary shows the overwhelming industrial importance of Austria in the monarchy. It is this industrial diversity of Austria and Hungary that makes the monarchy more or less self-sufficient, the two halves depending upon exchange with each other for their material well-being. The chief seats of industry in Austria are Bohemia, Silesia, Moravia, and Lower Austria. In Hungary, Budapest is the heart of industrial activity, 40 per cent. of the Hungarian factory population being employed there; yet the number of Budapest's manufacturing establishments constitutes but 10 per cent. of the total in Hungary, which shows that most of the large modern factories and mills of Hungary are located in its capital.
The most important industries in the monarchy that are carried on on a large scale, and play a leading part in the commercial and financial life of the country, are the textile and iron and steel industries. The most ancient branches of the textile industry are the spinning and weaving of wool and linen, for both of which the country produces abundant raw material. The maintenance of these industries has always been an object of special solicitude with the people of Austria, because it not only furnishes employment to the manufacturers and their workmen, but also affords an outlet to the wool and flax crops of the country. But although the wool and linen industries are still very nourishing, their relative importance is receding before the rapidly growing cotton industry. The raw cotton is imported from the United States and India, and is converted into finished products in the spinning, weaving, bleaching, dyeing, and printing establishments of the monarchy. The growth of the industry is best shown by the increasing quantity of raw cotton consumed from year to year. In 1831 the imports of raw cotton amounted to 12,456,000 pounds; in 1858 they rose to 87,523,000 pounds. Cotton was seriously threatening the very existence of the linen industry, when the breaking out of the Civil War in the United States, with the consequent cotton famine, gave the linen industry a chance to revive. After the war the cotton industry took a new lead, and the imports of cotton jumped to 132,739,000 pounds in 1871, 245,482,200 pounds in 1891, and 358,269.500 pounds in 1898. The silk industry is also making rapid strides, owing chiefly to the increased cultivation of the silk-worm in Hungary. Formerly the seat of silk manufacture was largely centred in Southern Tyrol and the neighboring region; now there are large silk-spinning establishments in Szegszárd. Panesova, and Neusatz, in Hungary, in which country about 86,000 families were engaged in the production of raw silk in 1894, as against only 100 families in 1879. All of the textile products enumerated constitute an important item of export from Austria-Hungary.
The iron and steel industry of Austria-Hungary is abreast of the times in its modern methods of manufacture. The production of pig, cast, and wrought iron, Bessemer steel, iron bars, etc., although large, is barely sufficient to cover the home demand on the part of the manufacturers of steel rails, iron plate, steel wire, etc., besides the numerous comparatively smaller manufactures of all kinds of metallic ware. In addition there is the very important machine-building industry, which includes the manufacture of locomotives, agricultural machinery, and all kinds of machinery used in modern manufacturing establishments. How inadequate most of these products are to meet the domestic demand, in spite of their great increase in the course of the last decade, is to be seen from the following figures, which show that, with a few exceptions, the imports of these products are greater than the exports:
| Products | 1888 Imp'rts Tons |
1888 Exp'rts Tons |
1898 Imp'rts Tons |
1898 Exp'rts Tons |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pig iron | 190.300 | 18.000 | ||
| Bar iron | 9.500 | 12.000 | 35.400 | 39.100 |
| Steel rails | 500 | 800 | 2.100 | 2.800 |
| Tin plate | 3.300 | 2.200 | 14.800 | 10.800 |
| Iron and steel wire | 1.000 | 800 | 3.900 | 1.400 |
| Iron, steel ware and machinery | (1891) 46.600 |
(1891) 27.500 |
57.300 | 49.900 |
The milling industry is still carried on to a considerable extent by small establishments, in which the motive power is wind or water, but there are now thousands of steam mills, most of them in Hungary. Some of them, as those in Budapest, are on a large scale.
In 1890 there were 106,616 distilleries, the great mass being diminutive stills, of which 27,055 were in Austria and 79,501 in Hungary. In 1898, out of 30,637 distilleries in Austria, only 600 used any kind of machinery, and a similar proportion held in Hungary. But of the 25,434,000 gallons produced by the 79,010 distilleries of Hungary in 1896, 24,884.000 gallons, or 97.8 per cent. of the total product, were turned out by 501 distilleries, or by about one-half of 1 per cent. of all the distilleries. The number of breweries is on the decrease, because the small breweries are crowded out of existence by their new large rivals. In 1865 there were 3143 breweries; in 1880 there were 2217; in 1890, 1859 (1761 in Austria and 98 in Hungary); in 1898 the number declined further to 1614. The annual output of the Austro-Hungarian breweries fluctuated between 317,000.000 and 370,000,000 gallons, and is behind only that of Germany and Great Britain in all Europe.
The beet-sugar industry is one of considerable importance in Austria, as well as in Hungary, and is fostered by the Government by a very liberal bounty system. In 1865 there were 147 refineries in the monarchy; the number grew to 215 (198 in Austria and 17 in Hungary) in
