738 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



and Hungary. It is very probable that the Itahan Government can 

 now obtain from the present government of Jugo-Slavia similar con- 

 cessions for the Italian industries on conditions and prices which 

 private inviduals would be unable to obtain. Italian capital is already 

 invested in large amounts in forest properties in those regions and 

 such concessions would stimulate the Italian lumbermen to resume 

 their development work there interrupted by the war. 



New sources of cheap timber are also being looked for in Roumania 

 and Russia. Before the war the Italian importations from Roumania 

 and Russia were rather small, but were on the increase, plainly indi- 

 cating the possibility of greater future development. Roumania's 

 absorption of Transylvania made it an important source of timber 

 supply for Italy. Italy is not willing to find herself again in a position 

 in which she was before the war, where she had to depend entirely 

 on Austria-Hungary and the United States for her lumber. The 

 Italian Government therefore is expected to keep close watch over 

 the markets of the Black Sea and the lower Danube and to investigate 

 thoroughly the less-known forest regions in those sections in order 

 to be ready to take the best possible advantage of them. Albania is 

 also included among the countries which are to be investigated as a 

 possible source of cheap timber. 



Briefly, the whole present economic tendency of Italy as far as 

 sources of raw materials are concerned, is, in diplomatic language, 

 an orientation toward East rather than toward West. Italy no longer 

 expects to secure the bulk of her raw products from the West, but is 

 seeking them in the countries lying to the east of it, chiefly around the 

 Adriatic and Mediterranean Seas. This may explain the tendency 

 toward an economic "rapproachement" with Jugo-Slavia. Italy was 

 also the first of the great European powers that resumed trade rela- 

 tions with Russia. To carry out this economic policy it is planned to 

 create a special bureau whose functions would be technical and com- 

 mercial research and general information ; this bureau would keep 

 in close touch with the Italian domestic markets and foreign exporting 

 markets, collect and compile statistics, and, through the laboratories 

 of the Royal Forest Institute, make technical tests of the new kinds of 

 timber that the new sources of raw material for Italy may provide. 



This tendency could be clearly foreseen even before the war.^ In 

 the face of these facts one needs unbounded optimism not weighted 



"Lumber Markets of the Mediterranean Region and the Near East, by Raphael 

 Zon. Department of Commerce, Miscellaneous Series No. 51. 



