21. German banks and “peaceful penetration.” [McLaren in Quart. Rev., Jan. 1919, 231: 76-96.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Readers of English will find the recent commercial history of Germany treated more fully than that of any other country of the Continent. Besides the books by Clapham and “Veritas” named in the preceding chapter, may be mentioned: S. Whitman, Imperial Germany, 1901; W. H. Dawson, German life, N. Y., 1901, and **Evolution of modern Germany, revised edition, 1918; W. von Schierbrand, *Germany, N. Y., 1902 (better than the later editions); J. Ellis Barker, Modern Germany, various editions of which the fourth, N. Y., 1912, is to be preferred. Dawson, Protection, and Ogg will continue to be of service in this period; and reference may also be made to report of the U. S. Tariff Commission, 1919, on Reciprocity and Commercial Treaties, 467-487.
G. A. Pogson, Germany and its trade, London, 1903, is a compilation of statistics for the period preceding 1900, and a convenient statistical survey for the period since that date is given by Helfferich, Germany’s economic progress, Berlin, 1913.
Arraignments of German business methods will be found in A. D. McLaren, Peaceful penetration, London, 1916; H. Hauser, Germany’s commercial grip on the world, London, 1917; Millioud, The ruling caste and frenzied trade in Germany, London, 1916; Claes, The German mole, London, 1915, (for Belgium).
CHAPTER XLI
FRANCE
495. Condition of France before the Revolution.—France was considered, as the reader will recall, the richest and most powerful state of Europe till near the end of the eighteenth century. The population of the country was more than double that of Great Britain, the resources were envied by all other nations, the commerce was exceeded only by English commerce and surpassed that in some respects. The French sugar colonies were considered the most valuable colonial possession in the world, and France surpassed England in trade with her direct neighbors (some of the German states, Italy, Spain). Under the political and economic system, however, which had fastened itself on the country in the course of time, growth was hampered; and opposition rose until it burst out finally in the Revolution of 1789. Then followed a period of twenty-five years of rapid political change and of bitter war, ending finally with the defeat of Napoleon in 1815.
496. Effect of the Revolution.—The losses of France during this period in men, money, and colonial territory need only to be suggested; the effect of the wars on French commerce has already been described. It is proper here to emphasize the good of the Revolution. In appearance, at least, it swept away all the old institutions, and liberated the people from burdens which they had been bearing for centuries. It abolished the former class divisions and inequalities in taxation; it freed the agricultural classes, and extended the ownership of land; it amended the former restrictions on the pursuit of manufactures and handicrafts; and it established perfect freedom of trade inside the country.
497. Backward features of industry and commerce.—No country can make an entire breach with its past, and France after 1815 was more like France before 1789 than the reader may suppose. The people had not acquired the skill and boldness in industry and commerce which the English had won by generations of experience. The government after 1815 was still highly centralized, with strong absolutist tendencies, and moved more by personal influences than by far-sighted views of the welfare of the whole people. These facts appear in the course of commercial policy followed after the Restoration. France had made only the barest beginnings in the modern industries depending on coal and iron, and on the application of machinery, at the time of the Revolution, and though industries developed when commerce was interrupted by war, they were weak in organization and technique, and loudly demanded protection when peace returned, and opportunities for commerce developed.
498. The French tariff in the first part of the century.—The result was a tariff system which goes far to explain the sluggish development of French commerce in the first part of the nineteenth century. It gave protection to shipping, to agricultural products, from wheat to sumac and garden roses, to the raw materials as well as the finished products of industry. Colbert’ s tariff of 1664 and 1667 has often been cited as an example of high protection, but the French tariffs of the period before 1850 imposed still higher duties on some of the most important raw materials of industry (wool, cotton, flax, pig and bar iron, steel, alum); many duties had risen to a prohibitive height, and there were many actual prohibitions.