The figures regarding literacy are not available for Austria-Hungary or Galicia, but there is every reason to believe that essentially the same situation exists as in Russia and Roumania. In the liberal professions in Austria-Hungary there were 16 per cent of the Jews so engaged as compared with 11 per cent of the non-Jews. In Galicia the contrast is much sharper. Relatively ten times as many Jews as non-Jews were represented in the liberal professions.[32] IV. SUMMARY A review of the occupations, economic function and social characteristics of the Jews in the countries of Eastern Europe reveals them in an important and essentially similar role in each country. Pursuing mainly industrial and commercial occupations, the Jews constitute by far the largest part of the middle classes of each country. The historical position which they held in the ancient kingdom of Poland as the middle class has been practically maintained to this day. By virtue of their occupations, the Jews are possessed of liquid wealth to a greater extent than the nobility or the peasantry, and in the lack of proper credit facilities still serve as bankers and money-lenders. The Jews have also been conspicuous in Eastern Europe as stewards or administrators of the estates of the nobility, who are, as a rule, absentee landlords, distinguished as a class by their serious lack of interest or ability in the management of their estates. The Jewish _Hofjuden_, as they were known, were particularly useful in the utilization of the products of the soil, through distilleries, mills, trade with agricultural products and exploitation of the forests.[33] In this way, however, Jews often acted as intermediaries in the oppression of the peasantry by the nobles. They were often keepers or lessees of the taverns, the ownership of which was formerly vested in the nobles as one of their feudal privileges. It is, however, as artisans, industrial laborers and merchants, retail and wholesale, that Jews chiefly obtain their living. Their monopoly of industry and commerce has given them an influence far above their numerical proportions.