The following table shows its distribution on the 1st of January of the two years 1905 and 1908:—

Baltic Ports. North Sea Ports. Total Shipping.
Number. Tonnage. Number. Tonnage. Number. Tonnage.
1905—
 Sailing vessels 386 19,067 2181 559,436 2567 578,503
 Steamers 486 236,509 1171 1,537,563 1657 1,774,072
Totals 872 255,576 3352 2,096,999 4224 2,352,575
1908—
 Sailing vessels 394 17,472 2255 516,180 2649 533,652
 Steamers 521 274,952 140l 1,981,831 1922 2,256,783
Totals 915 292,424 3656 2,498,011 4571 2,790,435

In 1905, 2136 vessels of 283,171 tons, and in 1908, 2218 vessels of 284,081 tons, belonged to Prussian ports, and the number of sailors of the mercantile marine was 60,616 in 1905 and 71,853 in 1908.

The chief ports are Hamburg, Stettin, Bremen, Kiel, Lübeck, Flensburg, Bremerhaven, Danzig (Neufahrwasser), Geestemünde and Emden; and the number and tonnage of vessels of foreign nationality entering and clearing the ports of the empire, as compared with national shipping, were in 1906:—

Foreign Ships.Number
entered
in Cargo.		Tonnage.Number
cleared
in Cargo.		Tonnage.
Danish59171,589,34650591,219,388
British53275,129,01732112,552,268
Swedish48911,164,4313317747,656
Dutch2181458,4011973316,562
Norwegian1565817,483720347,811
Russian720250,564439143,983

The ports of Hamburg and Bremen, which are the chief outlets for emigration to the United States of America, carry on a vast commercial trade with all the chief countries of the world, and are the main gates of maritime intercourse between the United Kingdom and Germany.

The inland navigation is served by nearly 25,000 river, canal and coasting vessels, of a tonnage of about 4,000,000.

Railways.—The period of railway construction was inaugurated in Germany by the opening of the line (4 m. in length) from Nuremberg to Fürth in 1835, followed by the main line (71 m.) between Leipzig and Dresden, opened throughout in 1839. The development of the railway system was slow and was not conceived on any uniform plan. The want of a central government operated injuriously, for it often happened that intricate negotiations and solemn treaties between several sovereign states were required before a line could be constructed; and, moreover, the course it was to take was often determined less by the general exigencies of commerce than by many trifling interests or desires of neighbouring states. The state which was most self-seeking in its railway politics was Hanover, which separated the eastern and western parts of the kingdom of Prussia. The difficulties arising to Prussia from this source were experienced in a still greater degree by the seaports of Bremen and Hamburg, which were severely hampered by the particularism displayed by Hanover.

The making of railways was from the outset regarded by some German states as exclusively a function of the government. The South German states, for example, have only possessed state railways. In Prussia numerous private companies, in the first instance, constructed their systems, and the state contented itself for the most part with laying lines in such districts only as were not likely to attract private capital.

The development of the German railway system falls conveniently into four periods. The first, down in 1840, embraces the beginnings of railway enterprise. The next, down to 1848, shows the linking-up of various existing lines and the establishment of inter-connexion between the chief towns. The third, down to 1881, shows the gradual establishment of state control in Prussia, and the formation of direct trunk lines. The fourth begins from 1881 with the purchase of practically all the railways in Prussia by the government, and the introduction of a uniform system of interworking between the various state systems. The purchase of the railways by the Prussian government was on the whole equably carried out, but there were several hard cases in the expropriation of some of the smaller private lines.