Mezei István: Urban development in Slovakia (Pécs-Somorja, 2010)

3. The settlement structure of Slovakia

The settlement structure of Slovakia

offices were organized and the members of cooperatives were forced to join the Czechoslovak central cooperative with Bratislava as its seat, which gradually took over the right to control the cooperatives. Only the cooperatives belonging to the central organisation could take advantage of duty and tax allowances.

The railway tariff system was regulated so that transportation from the Czech part of the country to the eastern parts should be cheaper, whereas transportation from the Slovak part of the country to the Czech part was 50% more expensive. Slovak shops were no match for Czech department stores in the competition. Czech large-scale industry set up large stores in each centre. In the Czech part there was an interest of 8% on loans, while in the Slovak part the interest rate was 10-14%. Most Slovak banks were taken over by Czech banks or merged with them. Only seven out of 30 Hungarian financial institutions remained. In 1934 a grain monopoly was introduced, which fixed the maximum prices. Credit terms were set so that the Slovak farmers should run into debt.

Table 22 demonstrates the backward situation of the Slovak part of the country. By indicating the numbers of industrial factories of different categories it shows the regional differences in contemporary Czechoslovakia. The vast majority of all factories, 84.3%, could be found in the Czech, Moravian and Silesian parts. The Slovak and Sub-Carpathian factories accounted only for the remaining 15.7%. This difference demonstrates the economic differences between the Czech and Moravian parts and the new Slovak part of the country. The figures also make it clear that in the Czech region the number and percentage of factories, especially factories with a high number of employees, were large and thus it had considerable economic power.

Table 22. Number of factories in the different provinces of Czechoslovakia in 1930 according to the number of employees

Size of factory employees

Czechia

Moravia and Silesia

Slovakia

Sub-Carpathia

1-5

59.3

24.7

13.6

2.4

6-19

62.3

24.2

12.0

1.6

20-49

67.0

23.8

8.4

0.7

50-199

65.8

25.1

8.0

1.1

200-63.4

27.3

8.5

0.8

total

59.6

24.7

13.4

2.3

84.3

15.7

Source: Statistisches Handbuch (1932)

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