The Mercantile System and its Historical Significance [31]
In the Netherlands, Amsterdam, Haarlem, and Utrecht became rich through this industry; and from thence it passed to Hamburg. Belgian and French refugees joined the Italian workmen in bringing it to Denmark, Sweden, and Russia. About 1700 Leipzig had already a considerable velvet and silk business; in 1750 a thousand looms were at work. In the Palatinate, in Munich, and in Vienna, J. Joachim Becher had made various attempts to call a silk industry into existence by means of companies; all through the eighteenth century like attempts were made in every German capital. But they succeeded, on any considerable scale, only in Prussia, and there especially in Berlin. It can certainly be maintained that, though Hamburg and Leipzig, Krefeld and Utrecht had greater facilities in reaching a market, in all other respects Berlin was as well fitted as many other places to support a flourishing silk industry; and also that, according to the ideas of the eighteenth century, it was bound to make the attempt as soon as the provinces of Brandenburg and Prussia were conceived of as forming an independent economic body ready for rivalry with Holland and England and France.
[Then follows an account of the measures of the government, and of the organisation and progress of the manufacture.]
We have watched the foundation, upon a stubborn soil, of an industry which reached at last a high degree of technical excellence; and this by the use of all the measures that a consistent mercantile policy could prompt. In scarcely any other case have like measures been applied with so wide a sweep and such steady persistency. In scarcely any other case have they been so carefully, step by step, adapted to the concrete conditions. What we have had under our consideration has been a domestic industry, which had already partially gone over to the factory form, but yet in which the workpeople were protected by gild regulation, state control, and governmental inspection. We have had to do with an industry producing for a great inter-state and foreign market, and with undertakers (Unternehmer) and factors (Verleger) occupying the most difficult position conceivable. In spite of all the state support and protection they received, they had to contend with a stern competition, with the shifting chances of the market, and with a task, both in the matter of manufacture and in the matter of trade, of the utmost severity. The attempt on the whole succeeded. Berlin in 1780-1806 stood almost on a level with all the other places where the silk industry was carried on. It was mainly through the silk industry that Berlin became an important factory town, and the town whose inhabitants were distinguished by the best taste in Germany. Of course people in Berlin could not yet produce quite so cheaply as the manufactures of Lyons which were three centuries older; in many of the finer wares they were behind Krefeld, Switzerland and Holland; but they had caught up with Hamburg and Saxony. They had not yet got so far in 1806 as to be able to meet with unconcern the fluctuations produced by the great war - a period of long and terrible impoverishment, together with the sudden abolition of the gild system, of the old regulations and of all state support, as well as the removal of the prohibition of importation. But since, in the province of Brandenburg, 1503 looms were again at work in 1831, and as many as 3000 in 1840-1860, it is clear, after all, that most of the business concerns that had taken root before 1806 were able to maintain themselves for at least a couple of generations even in the current of free international competition. And the fact that in the sixties and seventies, as living became dearer in Berlin, and the competition of Krefeld and of foreign countries became more intense, most of the Berlin men of business, capitalists and workmen, turned to other occupations, - while some parts of the old industry, like the business of dyeing, maintained themselves in an even more flourishing state, - this fact is no proof that the Berlin silk industry of the
[Then follows an account of the measures of the government, and of the organisation and progress of the manufacture.]
We have watched the foundation, upon a stubborn soil, of an industry which reached at last a high degree of technical excellence; and this by the use of all the measures that a consistent mercantile policy could prompt. In scarcely any other case have like measures been applied with so wide a sweep and such steady persistency. In scarcely any other case have they been so carefully, step by step, adapted to the concrete conditions. What we have had under our consideration has been a domestic industry, which had already partially gone over to the factory form, but yet in which the workpeople were protected by gild regulation, state control, and governmental inspection. We have had to do with an industry producing for a great inter-state and foreign market, and with undertakers (Unternehmer) and factors (Verleger) occupying the most difficult position conceivable. In spite of all the state support and protection they received, they had to contend with a stern competition, with the shifting chances of the market, and with a task, both in the matter of manufacture and in the matter of trade, of the utmost severity. The attempt on the whole succeeded. Berlin in 1780-1806 stood almost on a level with all the other places where the silk industry was carried on. It was mainly through the silk industry that Berlin became an important factory town, and the town whose inhabitants were distinguished by the best taste in Germany. Of course people in Berlin could not yet produce quite so cheaply as the manufactures of Lyons which were three centuries older; in many of the finer wares they were behind Krefeld, Switzerland and Holland; but they had caught up with Hamburg and Saxony. They had not yet got so far in 1806 as to be able to meet with unconcern the fluctuations produced by the great war - a period of long and terrible impoverishment, together with the sudden abolition of the gild system, of the old regulations and of all state support, as well as the removal of the prohibition of importation. But since, in the province of Brandenburg, 1503 looms were again at work in 1831, and as many as 3000 in 1840-1860, it is clear, after all, that most of the business concerns that had taken root before 1806 were able to maintain themselves for at least a couple of generations even in the current of free international competition. And the fact that in the sixties and seventies, as living became dearer in Berlin, and the competition of Krefeld and of foreign countries became more intense, most of the Berlin men of business, capitalists and workmen, turned to other occupations, - while some parts of the old industry, like the business of dyeing, maintained themselves in an even more flourishing state, - this fact is no proof that the Berlin silk industry of the