V] ARTICLES OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE 115

The

English coal export trade illustrates admirably _th6 differencebetweenearlyandlate nineteenthcenturyconditions.

Before 1828,

England had

never exported in one year 250,000 tons of coal to foreign countries

—

^all foreign countries.

The

figure first rose above 500,000 tons in 1835. ^It was 1,000,000 in 1838

and

2,100,000 _{in 1845,}

by which

time the railway and steamboat

demand

was beginning to tell. Contrast this with the 44,000,000 tons of 1900 and the 73,000,000 tons of 1913, exclusive ofbunker coal.

Since France

was

not at this time a creditor country nor, after 1820, a debtor either, the growth of her exports in value necessarily kept pace with that ofher imports.

Her

old staple trades

came

back to her rapidly, as soon as the seas were opened.

The

wine ships

crowded

to Bordeaux, as they had

when

it

was

the baseforthe BlackPrince's raids. Frenchsijks

and

ribbons,smuggled intoEnglandbecause oftheir excellence while'theprohibitivesystemwasretained,were importedopenly in great quantitiesassoonasprohibition

was

replacedbyatariif

.

Intheearly forties,France's exports ofmanufacturedsilkto all

countries averaged 5^5-6,000,000, out of atotal export trade of

some

;£45 ,000,000.

Her

finemanufacturesofwool andof cotton alsofoundreadymarketsabroad,asandwheretariffspermitted.

Coarser goods were marketed ^{in her colonies} and the Levant.

Her

miscellaneous artistic manufactures

—

^{furniture, clocks,}

porcelain, "Paris wares"

—

^{had not lost their} reputation.

The most

important

new

branch ^of her export trade was that in valuable

and

perishable ^foodstuffs

—

^{butter, pouhry, fruits and}

vegetables

—

^which

grew

pari passu with the relaxation of the Englishtariff,thatistosaymainlyinthe^{forties. It}wasgreatly encouraged

by

theuse ofsteamin theChannel.

Corn was

^the

main

export

from Germany,

with oil

see^

vegetable ^oils, wine, ^spirits and

some meat

and dairy produce.

The

merino

wool grown

in the east

was

sent in considerable quantities to England, and

was

an important ingredient in English fine cloth for at least a generation.

Some German

exports of manufactures, ^well

known

before the wars, had dechned, ^{notablythat of}linen referred toin anearlierchapter:

(Seeante,_§21.)

Trade

terminologyinEnglandstillrecalledthe

8—2

ii6

COMMERCIAL ORGANISATION

^[CH.

oldstateofthings. PeoplecalledonesortoflinengoodsHessians andanotherOsnaburgs^;buttheyweregenerally

made

inLeeds, Belfast or Dundee.

The

wars and the rigid protectionism of Russia after 1815 had cutoff

what

had once been animportant eastern outlet for

German

woollens. Austrian protectionism, which was of the ^strictest kind, blocked the south eastern trade routes.

Beyond

Austria

came

Switzerland,

whose manu-

factures Were at least equal, and in

many ways

superior, to those of her

German

neighbours.

Then

France,withindustries, generally speaking, superior,andwieldingastouttariff;Belgium, competent ^{inall industries} and in those of the

new

age very

much

^{superior; Holland, also} experienced, capable ofmeeting

most

ofher

own

needs,and ready to

draw

on Englandfor the rest; and so to Scandinaviawhere there

was

a modest outlet.

Of

course

German

manufactureswereexportedinconsiderable quantities; but as yet they did not play an important part in the

commerce

^of the world.

No

country

was

in any

way

de-

^pendent on them.

^

^29.

^Of

^{all the goods}

^{whose movement}

^{theimprovedroads}

and waterways were

meant

to help, only a small proportion

came

fromabroadorweredestinedforexport,evenincountries likeHollandand Belgium which wereessentiallylandsoftransit.

The

whole foreign tradeof Francein 1830

amounted

to about 20s.perheadofthepopulationper

annum. Twenty

yearslater,

her wine exports were less than ₃ per cent, of her average productioninvolume,thoughconsiderably

more

in value.Trades which

worked

primarily for export, like the silk trade, were exceptional in France, and still

more

so in any other part of the continent.

The

merchant proper, therefore, the wholesale trader with foreign parts, played a relatively unimportant role xin theeconomic^life of the nations.

The

further east onewent, the less important he became, as life

became more

local and

localities

more

self-sufficient.

Even

thewholesaledealerwhose operations were confined to his

own

country

was

not too

common.

According to Prussian statistics, which on the face of

them

arerather suspicious,the

number

of "GreatTraders,"

thatis,peoplewithout shops

who

bought andsoldontheir

own

account or on commission,

was

₃₅₈ in 1837^!

The

suspicious

v]

COMMERCIAL ORGANISATION

117 circumstance is that they are said to have

numbered

4185 ⁱⁿ 1843,

which

suggests a clerical error. Yeteven thelatterfigure is smallenough.

That

isPrussia. Butthegreatestmerchantcitiesof

Germany,

"

Hamburg,

Frankfurtand

Bremen,

werenot

on

Prussianterritory.

Even

the trader with a shop

was

not too

common

in the

Germany

of the forties. In

most

places there were

no

shops except the workshops of the handicraftsmen, tailors, cobblers, carpenters,

and

the rest. If the consumer wanted

what

they could not make, he

must buy from

a peddler or at his local yearly market.

Townsman

and peasant

met

weekly at the ordinarymarket, to

buy

and sellfood^;and sothe average

town

lived

on

localproduce.

Few

werelargeenoughtoneedsupplies

from

adistance. Butforanythingunusualboth

townsman

and peasant

had

to wait. Spices and condiments, materials fdlr,,

clothes, furniture, toolsand implementsatallout of the

common

run, toys

and

littleluxuries,were brought

by

migratorytraders-::^

grading

upwards from

the peddler to

what

might almost be called the merchant

—

^{to the yearly market. It}

^was

^{a great}

occasion.

There

were puppet shows and rope-dancers and

"English riders."

The

peasants poured in to

make

their little

purchases;thesquiresandtownsfolklaidin theirstores.

There would

be selling, too,

by

the local people

—

^{cattle, perhaps, if}

the yearly market

was

also a cattle market, or flax and other industrial crops, ifthe district

grew

a surplus ofthese things.

Behindtheyearlymarketsstood thegreatfairs,above^allthose

-

of Frankfurt

on

the

Oder

fortheeast,Leipzigforthecentre,and Frankfurt

on

the

Main

forthewest.

The

latterwas nolongerin fullvigour; it

was

influenced

by

the all-the-year-round trading habitsof

Western Europe

proper. Indeed,allthefairsbeganto,..-

show symptoms

^{ofdeclinebefore 1840. Frankfurt}

^on

^theOder,

it is true,the

most

easterly,thenearest toNijni-Novgorod and Eastern Europe,

was

^still growing

up

to 1855; but ^it was not offirstrateimportance. After 1834, ^allthe

most

importantfair business of the Zollverein

went

through Leipzig, a factwhich

illustrates the strength ofPrussia's position in the days

when

she

was

^{engaged in forcing Saxonyintothe Union.}

The

great fairswereprimarilymeetingplaces for dealers,notplaces

where

ii8

COMMERCIAL ORGANISATION

^[cH.

dealer

met

consumer.

The

local trader,

who

^{collected from}

independent craftsmen or peasants the coffee mills of

Nurem-

berg, the clocks of theBlackForest,the linensof^Silesia, orthe toys of the ThiiringerWald,

met

at thefairs other ^traders

who knew

the outlets for his goods, at

home

or abroad.

The

large Verleger,for

whom

^cottage

^wage

^earners

^{worked on}

commission, might visit the fair himself.

Through

the fairs the import merchants, usually from the

Hanse

towns, spread over the country their "colonialwares" orEnglish manufactures.

"Colonial wares"helped inthe creation ofreal shops, since continuous supplies

came

to be needed locally; but the

work

ofcreationwasslow. Beforethe greatwars evenBerlin,although

it had 200,000 inhabitants and a court, had not

many

shops.

There were a couple of "shopping streets," anda few shops thinly scattered in others.

The

Berliners, like other people, bought most of their food in open market.

They

span and baked andbrewed, and sometimes even

wove

and slaughtered, athome. There had beennothing to bring about a change by 1815; for the

town

had gone back inindustrypopulation and wealth. Luxury,for whichthe shops chieflyexisted,had gone

far back.

Not

untilabout the year 1830wasthe

movement

of the late

eighteenth centuryresumed. Specialisedshopsincreased in the fewlargecities;andinthelittlecountry towns,which werethe really representativeurban centres of

Germany,

theregrew

up

liere and there thosegeneral stores,with a range ofgoods from sugar andcoffee throughcandles topinsand tape,which inall

countries have gradually superseded the peddler and thewan- deringdealer ofthemarkets andfairs. But the peddler, native or foreign, was too well established in

Germany

to be ^easily superseded. Sometimes he was a specialist carrying Black Forestclocks,or glassware,

Nuremberg

metal wares,or foreign textiles.

More

often,perhaps, his tradewas ofthe

mixed

kind which literary tradition connects with the peddler's pack. In a land of peasants,with fewoutside needs, and ofsmall towns served

by

markets, such dealers will always retain their place,

and theshopkeeper can butslowly emerge.

'France was inall these matters several generations ahead of

V]

COMMERCIAL ORGANISATION

119