The transit trade with Montenegro is impeded by high tariffs on both sides of the frontier.
Bismarck always attached great importance to the improvement of the railway service, and he saw that uniformity of working and of tariffs was very desirable.
The peril from the infiltration of " revolutionary " ideas from without was met by the erection round the Austrian dominions of a Chinese wall of tariffs and censors, which had, however, no more success than is usual with such expedients.
In 1892 Austria-Hungary joined with Germany, Italy, Belgium, and Switzerland in commercial treaties to last for twelve years, the object being to secure to the states of central Europe a stable and extended market; for the introduction of high tariffs in Russia and America had crippled industry.
This was done in the teeth of the expressed wish of Russia; it roused the helpless resentment of Servia, whose economic dependence upon the Dual Monarchy was emphasized by the outcome of the war of tariffs into which she had plunged in 1906, and who saw in this scheme another link in the chain forged for her by the Habsburg empire; it 1 Alois, Count Lexa von Aerenthal, was born on the 27th of September 1854 at Gross-Skal in Bohemia, studied at Bonn and Prague, was attache at Paris (1877) and afterwards at St Petersburg, envoy extraordinary at Bucharest (1895) and ambassador at St Petersburg (1896).
