The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe

SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE

development, strove to exclude any other competitor from the Serbian market. The best proof of this may be seen in the fact that when in 1879 Serbia concluded her first commercial treaty with Great Britain, Austria-Hungary put her veto on it and caused the resignation of Ristié’s cabinet which had negotiated that treaty. Likewise when Serbia in 1905 negotiated a tariff union with Bulgaria, Austria-Hungary vetoed it and subsequently declared the tariff war with Serbia known as the pig war.

But in 1913 Serbia had nearly doubled her territory of 1912, and the future Southern Slav State will be quite a new and economically far more important country. In 1912 Serbia had a population of less than three millions and a territory of 48,000 klométres (18,650 sq. miles). The Southern Slav State, with her fourteen million inhabitants and a territory of about 260,000 sq. kilometres (100,000 sq. miles), must after the war have a foreign trade at least five times greater than Serbia of 1912.

British commerce will have the best opportunity of capturing the greatest part of it. But the buying and selling power of Greater Serbia, liberated from Austro-German economic and political thraldom, will soon increase to unprecedented proportions. Owing to unsettled political conditions and hindrances artificially inspired by Austria-Hungary against Serbian development and the merciless exploitation of their

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