All through this thesis the present writer's attempt has been to grasp the regional characteristics in the alpine economy by analyzing the changes which have taken place in the alps, the basis upon which the general alpine economy used to be dependent. The findings of the analysis now enable me to establish the following:
In regard to the regional characteristics of alps, there are three types, i.e., 1) French-Alpine, 2) Swiss-Alpine and 3) Austrian-Alpine. The French-Alpine type is characterized by an abandoned state of a large area of alps, the Swiss-Alpine type by an intensive use made of alps and the Austrian-Alpine type by a continued extensive use of alps.
It is further to be noted that for each of these three types there is a corresponding type of regional characteristic in terms of population movement, which, it can be safely said, has played the motive role in changing the regional characteristics of alps.
From a viewpoint of population movement as such, the French-Alpine type is characterized by a shortage of the nuclear constituents of éleveurs, induced by a sharp decrease, starting in the latter half of the last century, in the number of the Alpine population; the Swiss-Alpine type by the existence of a sufficient number of éleveurs to prevent shortage of their cardinal forces, this happening in spite of the above-mentioned decrease in the number of the Alpine population; the Austrian-Alpine type by a fairly large number of éleveurs still remaining over the Alpine area, where the population as a whole has been diminishing since the beginning of the present century.
In order to gain a still better understanding of the alpine economy, my next step was to give consideration to the relationship in which stand, on one hand, the three types and, on the other hand, the industrial poles in each of the three countries concerned. As a result of this new approach I find that the supposition can be established that the development of the three types is determined primarily by a distribution pattern of such industrial poles as attract population away from the Alpine area, the extent of their development and particular interrelationships there happen to exist between such poles and the specific region of the Alpine area.
Viewed from this angle, what characterizes the French-Alpine type is that there are a number of powerful poles in the avant-pays and vallées intérieures of the French Alps and also over the remainder of the French territory, which is equipped with modern means of communication, the most advanced of those in the three ntriescou, connecting those poles and the Alpine area. In the case of the Swiss-Alpine type, it is found that except in the avant-pays and vallées intérieures there is no powerful pole in the country which would draw population out of the Alpine area, although its means of communication are the second most advanced of the three. As for the Austrian-Alpine type, the formation of poles in the Alpine avant-pays and vallées intérieures of the country is pretty backward as compared with the case of the Swiss-Alpine type, and the political separation of the Austrian Alps from their north and south avant-pays prevents these latter from developing into a pole which would cause a movement in the Alpine population.
