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order. Generally speaking, business in the Austro-Hungarian market — 

 a market to which we have become much attached owing to the intimate 

 and long-standing connections we have established with it through our 

 branch-house — , still suffers from many drawbacks, partly of a purely 

 commercial, partly of a political character, to which we have not space 

 to refer here. In the spirit and liqueur-industries in particular there are 

 strong complaints of insecure prospects. Up to the present, the frequently- 

 discussed increase in the spirit-tax has not yet been carried out so far as 

 Austria is concerned, but in Hungary the tax has been raised to 1.40 Kronen 

 per liter of pure alcohol. This advance, which was proposed in the Budget- 

 Bill by the Minister of Finance and approved by the Chamber of Deputies, 

 came into force on September 1 st , and it is therefore of course impossible 

 at present to form an opinion of the extent to which this new taxation 

 will affect the trade in alcoholic preparations. The statistics show the 

 foreign trade of Austria-Hungary to be in a condition of steady expansion. 

 According to the Statistical Report of the Ministry of Commerce on the 

 Foreign Trade of the Austro-Hungarian Customs-Union, the imports in 

 the month of July of the present year showed a value of 245,4, and the 

 exports a value of 195,3 million Kronen, representing increases of 36,4 

 and 4,3 million Kronen respectively. The imports from January to July 

 inclusive amounted to 1779,2 and the exports to 1330,4 million Kronen, 

 or respectively 132,6 and 7,3 million Kronen in excess of the corresponding 

 period of 1910. 



We have also to report a further increase in the sales of our goods 

 in France, and this increase has not been restricted to those essential 

 oils of which the preparation is one of our specialities, but has extended 

 particularly to those costly synthetic odoriferous products, which we have 

 placed upon the market in recent years as the outcome of our prolonged 

 scientific investigations. At first the cognoscenti in Paris, that world- 

 centre of the art of perfumery, were disposed to shrug their shoulders at 

 these products of the technical development of the science of odoriferous 

 bodies, but innumerable new popular perfumes have now proved the useful- 

 ness, nay, in many instances the indispensability of these preparations, and 

 their future is full of promise. It is a source of great gratification to us 

 that our synthetic floral oils in particular have gained numerous converts, 

 especially in circles which are almost inconceivably reserved in their 

 judgment and appreciation of the quality of such products, and that their 

 excellence is being recognised and their advantages utilised in such quarters. 

 We are also glad to be able to state that in the business-relations of our 

 Western neighbours with ourselves no trace has been perceptible of that 

 petty chauvinistic spirit which has lately pervaded a certain section of the 

 French press; and which, but for the common sense of the reading public, 

 might have resulted in incalculable consequences to the economic welfare 

 of the two nations. 



