594. TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 
product is increased, the other part remaining constant and no improved specialism 
resulting, the produce will increase, and at a diminishing rate after a time, and will 
Jinally diminish. 
From these abstract laws it may be deduced that productive systems of the first. 
order (7.¢., individual businesses) must in their partial and total growth become 
finally subject to decreasing returns; that systems of the second order (2.e., 
industries) are subject to increasing returns as regards total expansion, and must 
ultimately fall under diminishing returns as regards partial expansion ; that the 
generalities in question predicable of systems of the second order hold also of those 
of the third, ¢.e., of communities as a whole. 
Attention being directed to the problem of consumption, it was indicated that 
things are demanded as well as produced in systems of different orders, and that 
within these analogous laws may be laid down, though they do not actually 
correspond to those of production. 
FRIDAY, AUGUST 2. 
The following Papers were read :— 
1. Lhe Rise and Tendencies of German Transatlantic Enterprise. 
By Professor Ernst von Haz, Ph.D. 
There was no German traffic beyond the seas to speak of before the formation 
of the United States. The consequent disruption of the Colonial system produced 
lively trade-relations during the ensuing period of French revolutionary wars. 
After a short interruption, produced by the ‘ continental system,’ a second impetus 
was given by the establishment of other independent States in South and Central 
America, 1815-1830. The abolition of the Colonial system in the rest of the 
European Colonies marks the third phase of expansion ; and the opening of trade 
relations with Eastern Asia, commercial treaties with Japan and China, mark the 
fourth, Preceding the formation of the German Empire there existed a very limited 
commerce with Australasia and Africa. By 1871 German tradesmen and bankers, 
particularly sons of the Hanseatic towns, were to be found in all parts of the 
world. 
A few German merchant princes and a larger number of small tradesmen 
abroad not only maintained relations with their country, but also handled the 
traffic of other commercial nations. 
London was the money market, and to some extent the money-lender. On 
the other hand, a large share of German Transatlantic exports and imports 
passed through English warehouses, and more still in English bottoms. The 
political decentralisation of the country had for centuries left the majority of 
German States without seaports and seafaring interests. The Zollverein brought 
commercial unity to the interior and Baltic sections, but did not embrace the 
North Sea ports till after the three wars which gave the Empire a flag and a 
commercial policy. 
At this time the population, which had doubled since 1800, numbered 
42,000,000. In the next thirty years 20,000,000 more were added; 65,000,000 
live to-day where about 20,000,000 lived at the close of the Napoleonic wars. 
Besides the increasing population, three events—the opening of the grain-fields in 
North America, the introduction of iron and steel steamers into the Transatlantic 
freight service, and the rise of large industries in Germany after the war—were 
the chief cause of the country’s transition from a grain-exporting nation into a 
grain-importing nation by the middle of the seventies, The industrial crisis 
increased the protectionist tendencies among the manufacturers, while American 
competition turned the agriculturists to protectionism. But the new economic 
policy did not stand in the way of rapidly increasing imports, which had to be 
paid for by increasing exports. 
It was not the manufacturing interests of the capitalist that nourished exports, 
