126 PAPER IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 



OUTLOOK FOR AMERICAN TRADE. 



The prospect for building up American trade with this locality is 

 not very flattering, from the fact that the export business from this 

 country has been almost wholly destroyed by reason of our tariff, 

 and parties in the business here feel bitter toward our country. I 

 regard our present commercial relations with Germany as unsatis- 

 factory, not only as regards the paper trade, but concerning many 

 other articles of commerce. The agrarian interests seem to be very 

 hostile to all American traffic, and are able to command legislation 

 which in its effects bears heavily upon the commercial classes as well 

 as upon the consumers of our various products. 



INFORMATION REFUSED. 



In my search after information for this report as well as for others, 

 I have met many obstacles. Business men here are slow to impart 

 information in relation to their industries, fearing that it will be 

 used in competition with their trade. This, together with the fric- 

 tion caused by the extension of trade in United States products, at 

 times makes it very difficult for a consul to secure full and complete 

 data. 



JOHN A. BARNES, 



COLOGNE, January 30, 1899. Consul. 



FRANKFORT. 



POPULATION. 



The consular district of Frankfort is a purely arbitrary division 

 of territory, including the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau and 

 portions of the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Grand Duchy of Hesse 

 adjacent to the city. There are for this district no statistics of 

 import and export, except "the total declared values of exports to 

 the United States" made out at this consulate. The statistics rela- 

 tive to the export and import trade relate to the whole of Germany 

 and are compiled from the official published returns of the imperial 

 bureau of statistics. The total population of this consular district 

 is about 2,500,000 ; the total population of Germany, according to the 

 census of 1895, was 52,279,900. There was a thirteen-per-thousand 

 increase in the population of Germany from the year 1890 to the 

 year 1895, and the subsequent ratio of increase is probably similar. 



Germany is a large consumer of paper, as may be inferred from 

 the fact that less than one-third, of i per cent of the total popula- 

 tion of the country is illiterate, As technical education is extremely 



