several thousand feet high, and which are solid blocks of carbonate of iron ore. It would seem, then, that with such a resource and such ample "protection" that there would be no lack of iron in Austria; but the new Polish railroad company, published in the Vienna Gazette, that "having proved by official statements that a sufficient quantity of rails could not be furnished by the mines and foundries of the Empire, they had received permission to import the required supply." Such were the means by which the Empire of Austria, its people, and government, although possessed of the most abundant natural resources, have been kept poor. Since 1848, however, a light seems steadily growing in the mind of those Statesmen. The example of England, the success of the Zollverein union, and the disposition of France, have, with the aid of steam and railroads, produced a conviction that the right to traffic is the best incentive to home industry." In 1852, Prussia and Austria for the first time signed a treaty of commerce and navigation for twelve years, in virtue of which there are no more any prohibitions of entry, travel, or export of any sort; the vessels of each country are on equal footing, and natural products free of duty, with moderate charges upon manufactured articles. This was followed in 1853 by the extension of the Zollverein for twelve years more, with the annexation of Hanover. Last year the Austrian and Prussian commissioners were to meet to form some mode of equalizing the customs of Austria with those of the Zollverein, in order to smooth intercourse. This treaty greatly aided the credit of Austria in raising her loan in 1854. In the following year the Baron Bruck was appointed Finance Minister, and almost his first act was to perfect the grant of the Austrian Credit Mobilier to the house of Rothschild, capital 60,000,000 florins, which was all subscribed in a few hours. Austria has also given great attention to the construction of railroads. The government has granted a great number of concessions, with a guaranty of 5 a 6 per cent interest. These roads will open a vast extent of territory to market, and make available produce that has not heretofore paid the transportation. In Austria the Lombardo-Venetian and South-Austrian system will be, when completed, one of the most considerable in Europe; 650 miles are already in full work, while, when all the lines are completed, it will have nearly 1,900 miles, connecting Austria, Hungary, and Southern Germany with Trieste and Italy, and extending in one unbroken line from Vienna to Milan, and from the Bavarian frontier to Florence.

The agriculture has also benefited by the general improvement, and among other articles the production of beet-root sugar has made great progress in Austria as elsewhere on the continent of Europe, and it has done so in face of a constantly increasing tax. In1830, there were two sugar factories in Bohemia, and those composed the whole sugar interest of the Austrian Empire. In 1858, there are 109 factories in operation, consuming, on an average, 4,850 tons of beet-roots per annum. The distribution of these factories is as follows:

This would give 47,000 tons of sugar per annum, and in Bohemia thirteen new factories were opened in October, 1858, for the new year. The greater success of the manufactories in that country is attributed to greater attention paid to the beet culture, and also to the fact that the soil of Bohemia yields beets with a greater proportion of saccharine matter. It is observable the "fostering" hand of government has been extended to this culture in a reverse sense, since in proportion to the growth of the business it has been stricken with a higher tax, a species of "protection" which our own sugar growers do not believe in. In 1849, the tax was 1 florin 40 kreutzers or 8 cents per cwt. of raw sugar, or 5 kreutzers (about 4 cents) per cwt. of fresh beet roots, or 27 kreutzers on dry roots. The tax of 5 kreutzers on fresh roots was continued in 1850; in 1853, it was raised to 8 kreutzers; in 1857, it was advanced to 12 kreutzers. The consumption continued to increase and the manufactories to flourish, conferring wealth on the manufacturers, prosperity on the root growers, and revenue on the government. At it is, however, the sugar refiners of Vienna met last summer and determined to recommend an addition of 50 per cent to the beet-root tax; that is, to make it 18 kreutzers, and this meets the views of the government. The argument of the refiners is that while beet-root sugar pays a tax of 2.36 florins per 100 pounds, raw colonial sugar is taxed seven silver florins per 100 pounds, Custom-house weight, or 891 pounds Vienna weight. Hence the difference against imported sugar is 6.17 florins, but colonial sugars imported for refineries pays two florins per 100 pounds less than if imported for consumption. Hence the refiners of imported sugar say they cannot compete with those of beet-root. The interest of the government lies with the importers because its revenues suffer. Thus, the customs revenue for 1857 was 20,568,464 florins, against 22,101,796 florins in 1856, a decline of 1,533,332 florins due entirely to sugar as follows, showing the decline in 1857 as compared with 1856:

This was compensated in some degree by the rise in the revenues from beet-root. There is no doubt that a great portion of the decline in the import of sugars into Austria in 1857 was due to the high prices ruling all over the world in that year as much as to beet-root competition. The agricultural productions of Austria are given as follows for 1850:

The metzer equals 13 bushels, the quintal 124 pounds, and the einer 15 gallons. The wine production is therefore 600,000,000 gallons.

With all the extent of territorial advantages and diversity of mineral and other productions, the external commerce of Austria, finding its way

through the ancient ports of Venice and of Trieste, has not increased much; it does not average over $60,000,000 imports and exports.

The commerce of Austria has of late been drawn more through the northern cities of Germany, Hamburg and Bremen more particularly, in relation to raw materials for manufactures. The freights from the United States to these northern ports are cheaper than to Trieste, and these northern importers afford better facilities to the spinners. Those of Trieste have banking commissions to pay in London and Paris, there being no exchange on Trieste as on Hamburg or Bremen. The consumption of cotton increases in Austria, reaching last year 768,190 cwt. The spinners of Bohemia get all their American cotton from the north, and Trieste supplies Egypt in cotton. The whole number of spindles, in 1841, was 988,000; in 1850, 1,441,000; in 1854, 1,533,243, and in 1857, 1,786,000. In Lombardy, 33 mills work 123,000 spindles.

Of late years the cotton manufacture has increased very considerably, having shared the general prosperity of that branch of industry in Europe. The import of cotton wool for the year 1856, according to the official review of the imports and exports for that year, published at Vienna in 1857, amounted to 768,197 Zoll centners, which, at 110,355 United States pounds each, would make 84,774,371 United States pounds; of this 758,895 Zoll centners, or 83,747,858 pounds, were for consumption, and 9,302 Zoll centners, or 1,026,503 pounds, were in transit.

The importation of 1856, compared with that of 1855, exhibited an increase of 140,936 Zoll centners, or 15,552,993 pounds.

The value of the cotton consumed was, in Austrian convention florins, 23,760,070, equal, at 484 cents each, to the sum of $10,938,634.

Upon raw cotton and its waste, imported for consumption, no duty is levied; if it be in transit, there is a small duty of six kreutzers, or 4 cents, per Zoll centner.

"The report of the Department of Statistics, published by the Directory of Administrative Statistics of the Imperial Ministry of Commerce for the fourth year, Vienna, 1855," gives a complete list of the cotton spinneries of the empire in the year 1854, from which the following table has been compiled :

Mills. Spindles.

Description of yarns, &c.

Upper Austria... 47 569,979 No. 6 up to 40, 60, 80, 100, 110, 120, 140.

Provinces.

Lower Austria.

9

83,590

No. 4 to 44, 50, 60, 80, 100.

2

18,300 No. 4 to 44, 4 to 26.

22 214,094 No. 4 to 46, 6 to 46, 10 to 40, 30 to 40.
71 449.906

No. 1, 4, & 6 to 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 80, 90, 100, 120.
No. 4 to 20, 6 to 20, 6 to 30, 6 to 40, 20 to 100.
No. 6 to 40.

Lombardy
Venice.....

30

2

.....

129,046
28,464

Several of these mills also spin twist, particularly those of Felixdorf, No. 30-100; Truman, 6-140; and Haratic, 20-160.

It will be perceived that the great bulk of Austrian spun yarns are of the lowest numbers, ranging from No. 4 to No. 50, upon which the tariff affords a very high and almost prohibitive protection. It is levied on the 100 pounds of yarn without regard to quality.

The yarns produced are mostly unbleached, and a ready home market is found for them.

The demand is principally for middling qualities 16-24, which are worth, ordinarily, in the Trieste market, 54 florins ($2 70) the package of 10 English pounds. When imported, they are sent chiefly to Hungary, Bosnia, aud Wallachia. Bleached yarns of the lower numbers imported cannot ordinarily compete, by reason of the duty, with those of domestic production. At Trieste, which is a free port, they are worth, generally, from 4 florins (51 94) to 4 florins ($2 18) the package of 10 English pounds, and are in demand for the Levant markets. The duty on bleached yarn and twist is 461 kreutzers (near 36 cents) the package of 10 English pounds. On bleached and twisted yarn the duty is 54 kreutzers (near 44 cents) in the package of 10 English pounds, while on those which are dyed it is 1 florin 22 kreutzers (near 65 cents) for the same measure, and they are also excluded from the domestic market by reason of the duties.

The domestic yarns are worth at Prague, which is the great center of production, the province of Bohemia having 71 mills, and 440,906 spindles out of a total of 1,533,243, from 42 to 45 kreutzers, (35 to 36 cents) the English pound. This does not materially differ from the prices at other points of Austria.

A very active spinning business is carried on at Prague and the neighboring districts of Bohemia, the raw material being almost wholly supplied by way of Bremen.

The mill of Mr. Richter-the only one visited by me-has 16,000 spindles, employs 500 hands in spinning and weaving, and consumes, on an average, 10,000 pounds of cotton per week, nearly all of which is "middling" Georgia and Louisiana, which, delivered at the mill, cost from 45 florins ($21 83) to 50 florins ($24 25) the centner, (110,35 United States pounds.)

Surat is used but to a limited extent, and for the lowest numbers, being mixed with the other varieties.

The yarns spun are chiefly Nos. 25 and 26, which are woven into ordinary cloths. The yarn of this and other lower numbers is worth at Prague from 42 to 45 kreutzers (33% to 36 cents) the United States pound. The wages paid are, for a head spinner, from 7 to 8 florins ($3 40 to $3 86) per week. He is allowed one assistant, at 2 florins, (97 cents,) and two boys, one of whom receives one florin 48 kreutzers, (86,4 cents,) and the other one florin 30 kreutzers, (72 cents,) per week. For women and girls, the wages are from 15 to 25 kreutzers (12 to 20 cents) per day. For weavers, the average wages are 3 florins ($1 45) per week. The working day begins at 5 A. M., and ends at 7 P. M., and an ordinary weaver can weave from 24 to 30 Austrian ells (20 to 26 yards) per week.

Spinning is also carried on in all the other provinces named in the table to a greater or less extent; the difference being mainly in the fineness or coarseness of the yarns turned out. In the two provinces (Upper and Lower Austria) of Austria proper and Styria, a greater proportion of the finer numbers are turned out; but the new material consumed continues to be, for by far the greater part, of the growth of the United States; and, as before observed, imported for the mills in the Voralberg, Vienna, and Styria, by way of the Northern States.

The extreine jealousy which the Austrian government continues to exhibit in relation to foreign products is a bar to much extension of in

tercourse, but it is to be hoped that the relaxations that have taken place in regard to the interior of Europe will have the effect of illustrating the benefits of more extended relations, and this applies also to the United States, which imposes duties too high to foster exchanges.

The following are the duties on imports into the United States, Austria, and the Zollverein compared, and applies to the whole of the Austrian Empire, with the exception of Styria, the district of the free port Trieste, of Venice, Fiume, Buccari, Porto Ré, Zengg, Carlopago, Brody in Galicia; Dalmatia, and the Quarnerian Islands. The importation, exportation, and transit of kitchen-salt, gunpowder, tobacco, raw or manufactured, though specified in the tariff, can only be allowed to take place by special permission-the government retaining the monopoly of these articles. The import duty, if not otherwise stated, implies net weight; while the export and transit duties, if not otherwise stated, imply, on the contrary, gross weight.

In February and March, 1857, the duties on looms of any motive power for weaving, and on machines for spinning yarn, were removed.