Richard Schüller’s journal article, published in the Mitteilungen des Verbandes österreichischer Banken und Bankiers, interprets Austria’s export difficulties as part of Europe’s diminished position in world trade. Its argument moves from comparative trade statistics through international indebtedness to a critique of protectionism and export dumping. The central claim is that Europe cannot restore its productive capacity by insulating national markets: recovery requires wider outlets, lower production costs, and freer exchange.
Schüller begins by dismantling the impression of recovery created by nominal trade values. World exports rose from approximately eighteen billion dollars in 1913 to twenty-seven billion in 1924, but export prices increased by nearly the same proportion. The apparent expansion therefore represents little more than a return to the prewar volume of trade. Even this stagnation conceals a geographical redistribution. Adjusting both for inflation and for former domestic exchanges newly counted as international commerce after the dissolution of empires, Schüller estimates that European exports fell by roughly thirty percent, while exports from the other continents grew by approximately fifty percent. Europe’s problem is thus relative decline within a world economy whose development has continued elsewhere.
Austria makes the employment consequences of this contraction particularly visible. Schüller treats the League of Nations’ estimate of a forty-percent decline in Austrian exports as broadly plausible, while questioning its division between former imperial territories and older foreign markets. Restoring the prewar level would require exports to rise from about two billion to more than three billion schillings. He connects that missing billion directly and indirectly with the wages of at least 200,000 workers:
Der Zusammenhang zwischen der Arbeitslosigkeit und der verringerten Ausfuhr ist sowohl bei uns als in Deutschland und England klar.
English translation: The connection between unemployment and reduced exports is clear both here and in Germany and England.
This is a structural explanation of unemployment, not simply an appeal for improved commercial performance. Schüller answers the objection that inflationary Austria and Germany had experienced relatively little unemployment despite still lower exports: inflation artificially sustained domestic consumption and, by undermining reliable cost calculation, encouraged excessive staffing. Austria’s subsequent export growth is real, but its exceptional rate reflects the exceptionally low starting point after the collapse. Increased quantities also overstate the improvement in value because timber accounts for a substantial share of exports.
The next stage shifts from trade volumes to the international payments system. Using the United States’ balance-of-payments figures, Schüller shows Europe financing its American merchandise deficit and investment payments through tourism receipts, emigrant remittances, monetary transfers, and borrowing. New American loans cannot indefinitely resolve this imbalance, because they generate additional interest obligations; inter-Allied debt payments intensify the pressure. Eventually, new credit will be matched or exceeded by the service of accumulated debt.
Die Bezahlung der europäischen Schulden ist nur durch Steigerung der europäischen Ausfuhr möglich.
English translation: The payment of European debts is possible only through an increase in European exports.
Export recovery consequently becomes a requirement of Europe’s altered creditor–debtor position. Yet European commercial policy moves in the opposite direction. Schüller distinguishes the initial postwar return to relatively moderate tariffs in western Europe from the prohibitions and prohibitive duties established farther east. By 1926, eastern restrictions are being relaxed, but from very high starting levels, while western countries are raising protection. These different trajectories converge toward a European high-tariff system precisely when participation in expanding world trade is most necessary.
Schüller’s principal conceptual move is to distinguish a selective advantage for one industry from a sustainable policy for an entire economy. He grants that protection can enable an export industry to charge high domestic prices and sell cheaply abroad, especially when its protected home market is large. But this advantage depends on protection remaining selective and foreign competitors refraining from retaliation. Neither condition lasts. Rival exporters demand comparable assistance, while importing countries increase duties against dumped goods.
Die Bevölkerungen der Exportstaaten werden belastet, damit die betreffenden Exportwaren billiger im Auslande verkauft werden können.
English translation: The populations of the exporting states are burdened so that the export goods concerned can be sold more cheaply abroad.
The result is a competitive subsidy race rather than a durable export advantage. Schüller invokes the prewar sugar industries: abolishing export premiums through the Brussels Sugar Convention saved public resources without reducing exports. Importing states can meanwhile capture the benefit of foreign subsidies through their own tariffs. His position nevertheless allows for defensive measures: he describes Austria’s proposed increases in sugar and superphosphate duties as responses to neighbouring countries’ dumping.
Protection also spreads internally. Once export industries receive duties they do not need for domestic survival, protection becomes harder to deny to weaker producers. General tariff escalation raises input costs, eroding the very export advantage it was intended to create. Restricted sales then reduce capacity utilization and further increase unit costs.
Der möglichst freie Verkehr ist die Voraussetzung dafür, daß Europa seine Position auf dem Weltmarkte wieder gewinnt.
English translation: The freest possible exchange is the prerequisite for Europe to regain its position on the world market.
Schüller concludes by opposing this self-reinforcing contraction with fuller utilization of productive capacity and lower costs. The article’s significance lies in connecting Austria’s employment crisis, Europe’s external indebtedness, and the reciprocal effects of national trade policies. Its demand for economic peace rests on the argument that measures benefiting individual industries can collectively obstruct European recovery.
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