The Mercantile System and its Historical Significance [11]
they had paid a considerable sum for the privilege; the Margrave John granted to the Frankfurters, in 1549, a similar privilege with regard to his appanage, the New Mark. The through transport of corn not produced in the Mark was allowed at any time upon the production of certificates of origin; and the Frankfurters were permitted at any time to export barley in the form of malt, even if it came from the country itself.(20*) While thus corn-exporting territories, like Pomerania, Magdeburg and Brandenburg, had constant recourse to prohibitions of export, though they were temporary only, these prohibitions rested on the idea of the territorial harmonising of production and consumption; and, when the needs were different, recourse was had without hesitation to an even more stringent and, in the last resort, permanent prohibition; as Pohlmann has described in the case of Florence,(21*) and Miaskowski for the Swiss cantons.(22*) The Netherlands prohibited the export not only of native horses, weapons, and war-material, but also of native corn, gold, silver, quicksilver, copper, and brass. In Brandenburg, also, hops were much more often compulsorily kept back than corn. Everywhere the prohibition of the export of leather and cattle played a great part. It was always the same conception that was involved: the resources of the land were thought of as a whole, which ought, first of all, to serve the needs of the country; they ought not to enrich a few individuals, but serve the home producer and the home consumer at a fair price. The regulations hitherto employed for this end by the towns were now transferred to the territories. As hitherto the town had laid an embargo, so now the territory: as the town had, at times, prohibited the import of foreign beer and wine and manufactured articles, so now the territory: as the town had hitherto maintained an elaborate system of differential tolls, so now the districts and territories set out upon a similar course. Berne threatened its Oberland (or subject territory) with an embargo on corn and salt, if it did not bring all its butter to Berne. As Nuremberg forced to its own market all the cattle that came within a circuit of ten miles;(23*) as Ulm did not allow a single head of cattle fed on the common pasture to leave its territory;(24*) so Florence secured for itself all the cattle sold from the subject districts without permitting their return, and exacted sureties from the owners of the great flocks driven to the Maremme that they would bring them back within the state boundaries a third larger. In the duchy of Milan, an official permission was necessary even for the transport of grain from place to place, so that the country might remain sure of its food. This transition from municipal to territorial policy in Germany is most clearly shewn in the matter of the raw material for its most important industry, to wit wool. When the crisis began for the German cloth-manufacture, - as foreign competition became more and more serious, as the local industry, which was carried on everywhere, began to decay and its place to be taken by a more concentrated business confined to places peculiarly well suited for cloth-making (1450-1550), - the towns tried at first to render the export of wool difficult or to regulate it for the benefit of the home industry.(25*) The impracticability of such a local policy soon shewed itself. Thereupon the Empire itself made a fruitless attempt to prohibit the export of wool (1548-1559); but soon abandoned the matter to the larger territories. Wurtemberg, Bavaria, Hesse, Saxony, and Brandenburg then tried by repeated laws and ordinances to hinder export for the benefit of the home producer; and not only that, - even the importation of cloth was partially forbidden. The wool trade and soon afterwards the cloth industry of the whole country received a territorial organisation. We have no space here to give an account of the efforts of Brandenburg in this direction; they begin as early as 1415 and 1456, and end with the famous wool laws of 1572-1611, which, however,