Beer is produced throughout the whole of Germany. The production is relatively greatest in Bavaria. The Brausteuergebiet (beer excise district) embraces all the states forming the Zollverein, with the exception of Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden and Alsace-Lorraine, in which countries the excise duties are Beer. separately collected. The total number of breweries in the beer excise district was, in 1905-1906, 5995, which produced 1017 million gallons; in Bavaria nearly 6000 breweries with 392 million gallons; in Baden over 700 breweries with 68 million gallons; in Württemberg over 5000 breweries with 87 million gallons; and in Alsace-Lorraine 95 breweries with about 29 million gallons. The amount brewed per head of the population amounted, in 1905, roughly to 160 imperial pints in the excise district; to 450 in Bavaria; 280 in Württemberg; 260 in Baden; and 122 in Alsace-Lorraine. It may be remarked that the beer brewed in Bavaria is generally of darker colour than that produced in other states, and extra strong brews are exported largely into the beer excise district and abroad.
Commerce.—The rapid development of German trade dates from the Zollverein (customs union), under the special rules and regulations of which it is administered. The Zollverein emanates from a convention originally entered into, in 1828, between Prussia and Hesse, which, subsequently joined by the Bavarian customs-league, by the kingdom of Saxony and the Thuringian states, came into operation, as regards the countries concerned, on the 1st of January 1834. With progressive territorial extensions during the ensuing fifty years, and embracing the grand-duchy of Luxemburg, it had in 1871, when the German empire was founded, an area of about 209,281 sq. m., with a population of 40,678,000. The last important addition was in October 1888, when Hamburg and Bremen were incorporated. Included within it, besides the grand-duchy of Luxemburg, are the Austrian communes of Jungholz and Mittelberg; while, outside, lie the little free-port territories of Hamburg, Cuxhaven, Bremerhaven and Geestemünde, Heligoland, and small portions of the districts of Constance and Waldshut, lying on the Baden Swiss frontier. Down to 1879 Germany was, in general, a free-trade country. In this year, however, a rigid protective system was introduced by the Zolltarifgesetz, since modified by the commercial treaties between Germany and Austria-Hungary, Italy, Switzerland and Belgium, of the 1st of February 1892, and by a customs tariff law of the 25th of December 1902. The foreign commercial relations of Germany were again altered by the general and conventional customs tariff, which came into force on the 1st of March 1906. The Zolltarifgesetz of the 15th of July 1879, while restricting the former free import, imposed considerable duties. Exempt from duty were now only refuse, raw products, scientific instruments, ships and literary and artistic objects; forty-four articles—notably beer, vinegar, sugar, herrings, cocoa, salt, fish oils, ether, alum and soda—were unaffected by the change, while duties were henceforth levied upon a large number of articles which had previously been admitted duty free, such as pig iron, machines and locomotives, grain, building timber, tallow, horses, cattle and sheep; and, again, the tariff law further increased the duties leviable upon numerous other articles. Export duties were abolished in 1865 and transit dues in 1861. The law under which Great Britain enjoyed the “most favoured nation treatment” expired on the 31st of December 1905, but its provisions were continued by the Bundesrat until further notice. The average value of each article is fixed annually in Germany under the direction of the Imperial Statistical Office, by a commission of experts, who receive information from chambers of commerce and other sources. There are separate valuations for imports and exports. The price fixed is that of the goods at the moment of crossing the frontier. For imports the price does not include customs duties, cost of transport, insurance, warehousing, &c., incurred after the frontier is passed. For exports, the price includes all charges within the territory, but drawbacks and bounties are not taken into account. The quantities are determined according to obligatory declarations, and, for imports, the fiscal authorities may actually weigh the goods. For packages an official tax is deducted. The countries whence goods are imported and the ultimate destination of exports are registered. The import dues amounted in the year 1906, the first year of the revised tariff, to about £31,639,000, or about 10s. 5d. per head of population.
Statistics relating to the foreign trade of the Empire are necessarily confined to comparatively recent times. The quantities of such imported articles as are liable to duty have, indeed, been known for many years; and in 1872 official tables were compiled showing the value both of imports and of exports. But when the results of these tables proved the importation to be very much greater than the exportation, the conviction arose that the valuation of the exports was erroneous and below the reality. In 1872 the value of the imports was placed at £173,400,000 and that of the exports at £124,700,000. In 1905 the figures were—imports, £371,000,000, and exports, £292,000,000, including precious metals.
Table A following shows the classification of goods adopted before the tariff revision of 1906. From 1907 a new classification has been adopted, and the change thus introduced is so great that it is impossible to make any comparisons between the statistics of years subsequent to and preceding the year 1906. Table B shows imports and exports for 1907 and 1908 according to the new classification adopted.
Table A.—Classes of Imports and Exports, 1905.
| Import. | Export. | |
| Refuse | £6,866,250 | £1,170,200 |
| Cotton and cottons | 23,488,750 | 22,949,600 |
| Lead and by-products | 996,300 | 979,400 |
| Brush and sieve makers’ goods | 102,400 | 515,450 |
| Drugs, chemists’ and oilmen’s colours | 15,896,900 | 23,196,250 |
| Iron and iron goods | 3,156,500 | 33,126,400 |
| Ores, precious metals, asbestos, &c. | 28,834,050 | 9,899,450 |
| Flax and other vegetable spinning | ||
| materials except cotton | 6,794,100 | 1,235,700 |
| Grain and agricultural produce | 59,136,200 | 7,496,500 |
| Glass | 538,050 | 2,743,900 |
| Hair, feathers, bristles | 3,218,600 | 1,848,150 |
| Skins | 18,965,500 | 9,548,450 |
| Wood and wooden wares | 16,940,850 | 6,056,150 |
| Hops | 913,150 | 2,135,600 |
| Instruments, machines, &c. | 4,351,500 | 17,898,250 |
| Calendars | 34,300 | 74,700 |
| Caoutchouc, &c. | 7,379,600 | 4,616,400 |
| Clothes, body linen, millinery | 739,900 | 7,321,050 |
| Copper and copper goods | 8,273,400 | 10,307,050 |
| Hardware, &c. | 2,042,400 | 12,610,550 |
| Leather and leather goods | 3,567,950 | 9,665,300 |
| Linens | 1,750,100 | 1,904,950 |
| Candles | 11,150 | 42,350 |
| Literary and works of art | 3,066,050 | 9,025,500 |
| Groceries and confectionery | 41,446,400 | 17,585,000 |
| Fats and oils | 12,510,600 | 2,631,600 |
| Paper goods | 1,086,800 | 7,158,800 |
| Furs | 265,700 | 720,200 |
| Petroleum | 5,036,600 | 132,300 |
| Silks and silk goods | 9,523,300 | 8,889,000 |
| Soap and perfumes | 151,600 | 768,200 |
| Playing cards | 400 | 18,950 |
| Stone goods | 2,822,000 | 2,110,550 |
| Coal, lignite, coke and peat | 10,136,800 | 15,096,450 |
| Straw and hemp goods | 561,650 | 262,100 |
| Tar, pitch, resin | 2,504,400 | 834,100 |
| Animals, and animal products | 9,926,200 | 590,700 |
| Earthenware goods | 391,650 | 5,076,350 |
| Cattle | 11,366,200 | 725,100 |
| Oilcloth | 43,150 | 177,300 |
| Wools and woollen textiles | 25,290,200 | 21,562,900 |
| Zinc and zinc goods | 682,250 | 2,413,600 |
| Tin and japanned goods | 1,770,550 | 744,100 |
| Goods insufficiently declared | . . | 806,300 |
| Total. | £352,317,250 | £284,626,900 |
Table B.—Classes of Imports and Exports, 1907 and 1908.
The following table shows the commercial intercourse in imports and exports, exclusive of bullion and coin, between Germany and the chief countries of the world in 1905, 1906 and 1907.