Note A3-6-5 — Chapter III

In Germany, the tariff projects of the empire of 1522, contemplated no protection, inasmuch as imports and exports were equally taxed, but the importation of the most necessary means of subsistence was left free. Prohibition of the exportation of the precious metals in 1524; of the exportation of raw wool mit grossen Haufen (R. P. O., of 1548, art. 21; 1566, and in the R. P. O. of 1577, limited to the pleasure of the several districts). Hence, in Brandenburg, 1572 and 1578, the Saxons, Pommeranians and Mecklenburghers were prohibited to export wool and to import cloth, in retaliation. Individual states had much earlier adopted protective measures: Göttingen, in 1430, prohibited the exportation of yarn, and in 1438, the wearing of foreign woolen stuffs. (Havemann, Gesch. von Braunschweig und Luneburg, I, 780 seq.) Hanseatic politics recall in many respects the Venetian. After 1426, the sale of Prussian ships to non-Hanseates was made as difficult as possible; and in 1433, the importation of Spanish wool was prohibited in order to compel the payment of debts by Spain. (Hirsch, Gesch. des Danziger, H. 87, 268.) Prohibition of the exportation of the precious metals to Russia at the end of the thirteenth century. Sartorius, II, 444, 453, III, 191. The elector, Augustus of Saxony, forbade the exportation of corn, wool, hemp and flax (Cod. Aug. I., 1414). The Bavarian L. O., of 1553, prohibits generally the sale of corn, cattle, malt, tallow, leather or other Plennwerthe to foreigners; which prohibition was, in 1557, limited to cattle, malt, tallow, wool and yarn.

The protective system received its most important development in Prussia. Prohibition by the margrave, about the end of the thirteenth century, of the exportation of woolen yarn. (Stengel, Pr. Gesch., I, 84.) In the privilege accorded to the weavers of woolen wares, in 1414, the importation of the less important cloths is forbidden for two years. (Droysen, Preuss. Gesch. I, 323.) The prohibition of the exportation of wool of 1582 assigns as a reason of the prohibition, that the numerous leading weavers should not be ruined for the sake of a few unmarried journeymen and sellers. (Mylius, C. C. M., V, 2, 207.) In the prohibitions of 1611 and 1629, the domains, the estates of prelates and knights were exempted; similarly, in Saxony, 1613-1626; which is one of the many symptoms of the then growing Junkerthum. The great elector, who attached, both in war and peace, great value to the possession of coasts, men-of-war and colonies, forbade, for instance, the importation of copper and brass wares (1654), of glass (1658), of steel and iron (1666), of tin (1687); farther, the exportation of wool (1644), leather (1669), skins and furs (1678), silver (1683), rags (1685). Home commodities were, for the most part, stamped with the elector's arms, and all which were not so stamped were prohibited. The prohibition was generally preceded by a notice that the elector had himself established or improved a manufactory, or that the guilds (Innungen) had entered complaints against foreign competition. Not till 1682 did the idea occur to impose a moderate excise on the home product to be favored, and a much higher duty on the foreign one; thus in the case of sugar. (Mylius, IV, 3, 2, 16.) Frederick I. continued this system especially for the forty-three branches of industry hitherto unknown, and the introduction of which was contemporaneous with the reception of the Huguenots. (Stengel, 3, 48, 208.) Frederick William I., in 1719 and 1723, threatened the exportation of wool, under certain circumstances, with death. (Mylius, V, 2, 4, 64, 80.) The severity with which he insisted that his officials and officers should wear only home cloth is characteristic; and the fact that in 1719 he threatened tailors who worked foreign cloth, with heavy money fines and the loss of their guild-rights. At the same time all workers in wool were freed from military duty, and capitalists who had loaned money to wool manufacturers were given a preference (1729). Frederick the Great, who continued nearly all this, prohibited the exportation of Silesian yarn, with the exception of the very coarsest and finest, as well as of that which had been bleached. Its exportation was allowed to Bohemia only, because from here the linen went back again to Silesia to be bleached and sold there. (Mirabeau, De la Monarchie Pruss., II, 54.)