AMERICAN LUMBER TRADE IN ITALY 727 



sidered essential. Private industry in Italy, as elsewhere, is still in an 

 unsettled state. The foreign countries that supplied most of the Italian 

 wood are disorganized. The conditions of transportation both by 

 water and rail and the general economic situation of eastern Europe 

 are unstable. The industries therefore need the cooperation of the 

 Government in securing the necessary supplies of timber. 



From the neutral or allied countries, such as Switzerland, the United 

 States, and Canada, the Italians do not hope to secure much timber. 

 Switzerland during the war was under the necessity of trading timber 

 for food supplies. With its own limited timber supplies it is unable 

 to hold out very much longer, as under normal conditions Switzerland 

 itself imports timber. At present the Swiss Government is under a 

 contract to the Italian Government to supply a small amount of wood. 

 As to timber from the United States and Canada, the Italians feel that 

 the high prices and the low exchange make the purchase of American 

 timber practically out of the question and compel them to look for 

 sources of timber supplies at more reasonable prices and in countries 

 where the rate of exchange is more on a level with their own. The 

 present tendency, therefore, of the Italian industries and Italian Gov- 

 ernment is to seek for a source of timber in the countries lying around 

 the Adriatic and Mediterranean ; in other words, in the countries 

 which have recently been separated from Austria-Hungary and also 

 in such countries as Roumania, Ukraine, and the Caucasus. They also 

 feel that the German states of Austria, from which Italy obtained, 

 before the war, the greater part of her fir timber — Tyrol, Styria, 

 Carinthia, and other provinces — should deliver, as a part of the war 

 indemnity for a series of years, a certain quantity of wood, great 

 reserves of which must have accumulated in those provinces during 

 the war because of the stoppage of all export trade. They think 

 that this is very easy of accomplishment as most of the forests are 

 state property over which the government has complete control. 

 Jugo-Slavia, which now includes Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Slavonia, 

 Croatia, and Carniola, comprises great forest wealth, both of softwoods 

 and hardwoods. It is a country chiefly agricultural and wooded, which 

 in the natural course of development will be opened up to foreign 

 trade, exchanging forest products for Italian manufactured goods. 

 These forests are also largely public property. In the past when these 

 countries were parts of Austria-Hungary the Austrian Government 

 gave extensive forest concessions to the wood industries of Germany 



