a local tax on spirits in 1.V.?;, while a tax on imports and ex- 

 ports was established, for all the provinces, in 1542. Such 

 taxes were also raised in Brandenburg, in 1575; in Saxony, 

 in 1505; and in various other States, and by the end of the 

 following century alcohol taxes were generally an important 

 part of the revenue svstein. 1 



II. From /lie /!(>(/ 1 niiinf/ of the Nineteenth Century to 18S7. 

 a. Xorth German States. 



1. Introduction. 



A study of the statistics? of the production of alcoholic 

 liquors in the different states of Germany during the nine- 

 teenth century gives one a good idea of the agricultural and 

 industrial changes that have taken place within this long 

 period, and of the influence which the formation of the Cus- 

 toms Union, the improved transportation facilities, the intro- 

 duction of steam power and machinery, industrial freedom, 

 the growth of capitalism, and the creation of the German Em- 

 pire, have had on agriculture and industry in general. In 

 Germany, at the beginning of the century, trade and produc- 

 tion were still hampered by almost mediaeval restrictions. 

 The craft guilds still existed in many places and with their 

 regulations (Bann and Zwang Rechten) exerted an injurious 

 effect on industrial development. Still more harmful, how- 

 ever, was the division of Germany into a large number of in- 

 dependent tax and tariff districts, which made extensive trade 

 almost impossible. Agriculture was still carried on in a very 

 primitive way, little if any improvement having been made 

 for centuries. Mecanical aids, with the exception of those 

 "borrowed from the ancients, were unknown. The method of 

 cultivation was the so-called three-field system, in which grain 

 is raised upon the land for two years, while during the third 

 year the field lies fallow, i. e., not sown, but plowed and cul- 

 tivated in order to cleanse it from the weeds, which cannot be 

 destroyed when land is sown to grain. Under this system of 

 agriculture, which was universal, one-third of the farming 

 land of Germany lay idle and a great economic loss resulted. 



1. Wolf, " Die Branntweinsteuer," p. 82. 



