March 1896.] 



FOREIGN OFFICE REPORTS. 



457 



Ministry of Finance in order to facilitate the erection of factories 

 and works. Further, a certain number of efficient and practical 

 mechanics are to be instructed in the handling and repairing 

 of agricultural machinery and implements, and will subsequently 

 be despatched to the various grain-growing districts for the 

 purpose of assisting and instructing the peasantry in their use, 

 and it seems probable that these mechanics may eventually open 

 their own workshops and establish themselves in the respective 

 localities to which they are sent. It is also stated that the 

 Ministry of Agriculture intends opening depots ot agricul- 

 tural machinery and implements as well as of seeds in even the 

 most remote parts of the Empire. Such depots already exist in 

 Russia proper, and it seems likely that they will shortly be 

 established in the Caucasus. 



[Foreign Office Report, Annual Series, No. 1654. Price 



The Servian Meat Trade. 



The Foreign Office has lately transmitted to the Board infor- 

 mation, supplied by Mr. R. G. D. Macdonald, Her Majesty's 

 Consul at Belgrade, respecting the Servian meat trade. It 

 seems that when the Hungarian frontier was closed to Servian 

 swine, various plans were ventilated and experiments tried for 

 enfranchising the country from her dependence upon the Austro- 

 Hungarian market. 



The entire export trade of Servia in 1894 was valued at 

 1,^40,928^, the amount of live stock in general being estimated 

 at 1,049,880^., i.e , at over 50 per cent., and that of swine at 

 681, 780^., or 37 per cent, of the entire exportation. Of Servian 

 live stock in general Austria-Hungary purchased to the value 

 of 1,023,449^., whilst swine from Servia to the value of no less 

 than 681,708L passed through the Hungarian market at Stein- 

 bruck. 



These figures, it is held, show that, in the absence of any 

 other market for Servia's live stock, an embargo upon her ex- 

 portation of swine to Hungary cripples the country's resources 

 by 37 per cent., stops the return supply of gold with which she 

 reckons to meet her foreign debts, and exposes her to a risk of 

 partial financial paralysis. The effect of the recent prohibition 

 by Hungary is said to have been aggravated by the fact that 

 Servia is at present suffering from depression of trade, a swollen 

 public debt, and diminishing receipts from taxation. 



It seems that experimental shipments were made in the 

 winter of 1894-95, by an Italian firm, of small consignments of 

 Servian swine to Marseilles via Salonica, and the success 

 which was claimed for these trials raised the hope that a 

 new outlet for this trade might be found in that direction. 

 A special commissioner was despatched to Salonica by the 



