Industrialization beyond Britain HW #3
Friedrich List
1789-1846. German Journalist and thinker was a strong proponent of government support for industrialization. In the 1820s and 1830s List spent several years in the United States where he observed the country's rapidly developing economy with great interest. He returned with the conviction that the growth of modern industry was of the utmost importance. For List, manufacturing was a primary means of increasing people's well-being and relieving their poverty. He believed industrialization was essential to prevent the German states from falling behind the rest of the world. He wrote that the "wider the gap between the backward and advanced nations becomes, the more dangerous it is to remain behind." The practical policies that List focused on were railroad building and the tariff. He was a supporter of unifying the German lands, he supported the formation of a customs union, or Zollverein among the separate states. Such as tariff union came to be in 1818. This allowed goods to move between member states without tariffs while erecting a single uniform tariff against other nations. List wanted a high protective tariff which would encourage infant industries allowing them to develop and eventually hold their own against their more advanced British counterparts.
Zollverein
German journalist and thinker Friedrich List favored the development of a customs union. He also supported the unifying the German lands. Such a tariff (taxes) union came into being in 1818 and spread to most of the German states. This allowed goods to move between member states without tariffs while erecting a single uniform tariff against other nations. List wanted a high protective tariff which would encourage infant industries allowing them to develop and eventually hold their own against their more advanced British counterparts.
Second industrial revolution
Refer to the spectacular rise of the German lands and the United States after 1860.
National and International variations
1. In 1750, all countries were fairly close together in per capita level of industrial goods production including China and India. However, by 1800, Britain had opened up a noticeable lead over all countries and the gap continued to widen as the Industrial Revolution accelerated through 1830. 2. Western countries began to emulate the British model successfully over the course of the 19th century with variation in the extent of industrialization. Belgium independence from the Netherlands in 1831 and rich in iron and coal led in adopting British new technology. France developed factor production more gradually and most historians detect no burst in French mechanization or true industrial revolution. French dominance of the market in luxury goods using the traditional artisanal techniques was eventually overshadowed b the spectacular rise of the German lands and the United States after 1860. In general, eastern and southern Europe began the process of modern industrialization later than northwestern and central Europe. 3. The late but substantial industrialization in eastern and southern Europe meant that all European states as well as the United States managed to raise per capita industrial levels in the 19th century. These increases stood in striking contrast to the decreased in products in non-Western countries such as China and India. Japan was an exception. After the forced opening of the country to the West in the 1850's, Japanese entrepreneurs began to adopt Western technology and manufacturing methods, resulting in a production boom the late 19th century.
Fritz Harkort
1793-1880. A pioneer in the German machinery industry. He served in England as a Prussian army officer during the Napoleonic Wars. Harkort was impressed with what he saw. He set up shop building steam engines in the Ruhr Valley on the western border with France. Due to lack of skilled laborers, Harkort hired expensive mechanics from Britain. Getting materials was also difficult. He had to import the thick iron boilers from England. Despite these obstacle he succeeded in building and selling engines. His ambitious efforts over 16 years also resulted in large financial losses for himself and his partners. He was an exception. Most continental businesses adopted factory technology slowly and handicraft methods lived on.
Tariff Protection
A government's way of supporting and aiding its own economy by laying high taxes on imported goods from other countries as when the French responded to cheaper British goods flooding their country by imposing high tariffs on some imported products.
Bank role in industrial revolution
Before the industrial revolutions, all banks in continental Europe was private. To avoid financial loss, the partners of private banks tended to be conservative and were content to deal with a few rich clients and a few big merchants. They avoided industrial investment as being too risky. In the 1830's two banks in Belgium pioneered in a new direction. They received permission from the growth-oriented government to establish themselves as corporations enjoying limited liability. If the bank went bankrupt, stockholders could now lose only their original investments in the bank's common stock and they could not be forced by the courts to pay for any additional losses out of other property they owned. Limited liability helped these Belgian banks attract investors. This allowed banks to investment in big companies and successfully promoted industrial development. Similar corporate banks became important in France and the German lands in the 1850s and 1860s. Usually working in collaboration with governments, corporate banks established and developed many railroads and many companies working in heavy industry which were also increasingly organized as limited liability corporations.
Agents of Industrialization
British tried to prevent other countries from using their technical discoveries. Until 1825, it was illegal for artisans and skilled mechanics to leave Britain. Until 1843, the export of textile machinery and other equipment was forbidden. Many talented, ambitious workers, however, slipped out of Britain illegally and introduced the new methods abroad. William Cockerill and his son John Cockerill and Friz Harkort were agents of industrialization for continental European countries. Continental industrialization usually brought substantial but uneven expansion of handicraft industry industry in both rural and urban areas. Artisan production of luxury items grew in France as the rising income of the international middle class creased increased foreign demand for silk scarves, embroidered needlework, perfumes and fine wines. French entrepreneurs capitalized on their know-how and international reputation for making luxury items. They did not join in on industrial revolution.
The situation outside of Europe
Except for United States and Japan, the impact of industrial revolution did not go beyond Europe in 1860s. In Russia, the imperial government brought steamships to the Volga River and a railroad to the capital, St. Petersburg in the first decades of the 19th century. By mid-century ambitious entrepreneurs had established steam-powered cotton factories using imported British machines. But These did not lead to overall industrialization of the country. Most people in Russia remained in rural servitude. Russia provided raw materials (timber and grain) to the hungry West. Egypt also began an ambitious program to modernize in the first decades of the 19th century by using imported British technology and experts in textile manufacture and other industries. But they could not compete with lower-priced European imports. Egypt fell back on agricultural exports to European markets (sugar and cotton). Where European governments maintained direct or indirect political control, government of Middle East, Asia and Latin American monopolized colonial markets as both sources of raw materials and consumers for their own products rather than encouraging the spread of industrialization. Such regions could not respond to low-cost imports by raising tariffs as the United States and western European nations had done. These countries were controlled by imperial powers that did not allow them to do so. In India, millions of poor textile workers lost their livelihood because the could not compete with industrially produced British cotton. Latin American countries were distracted from economic concerns by the early-nineteenth century wars of independence. By the mid-nineteenth century they had adopted steam power for sugar and coffee processing. These developments led to increased reliance on agricultural crops for export, not a rise in industrial production. As in India, the arrival of cheap British cottons destroyed the pre-existing textile industry that had employed many Latin American men and women. The rise of industrialization of Britain, western Europe and the United States resulted in other regions of the world becoming increasingly economically dependent. Instead of industrializing, many territories underwent a process of deindustrialization due to imperialism and economic competition.
Government support of industrial revolution
Just as the British government provided support fort the growth of industrialization, so did national government in other parts of Europe. In 1815, western European states adopted a set of largely successful policies similar to those in Britain. Tariff protection was used by the French to keep their citizens from buying cheap British goods flooding into France. After 1815, continental governments also bore the cost of building roads, canals and railroads to improve transportation. Belgium led the way in the 1830's and 1840's. Belgium's state-owned railroads stimulated the development of heavy industry and made the country an early industrial leader. The Prussian government provided another kind of invaluable support for railroads. It guaranteed that the state treasury would pay the interest and principal on railroad bonds if the closely regulated private companies in Prussia were unable to do so. In France, the stated paid the expense of acquiring and laying roadbed, including bridges and tunnels. In short, governments helped pay for railroads.
William Cockerill
One of the agent of industrialization. He was a Lancashire carpenter. He and his sons began building spinning equipment in French occupied Belgium in 1799. John Cockerill, the most famous son built a large industrial enterprise in Liege in southern Belgium which produced machinery, steam engines and then railway locomotives. He also established modern ironworks and coal mines. His place became a center for the gathering and transmitting of industrial information across Europe. Many skilled British workers came to work for Cockerill and some went on to found their own companies throughout Europe. Newcomers will bring the latest industrial plans and secrets from Britain to Cockerill. C
Industrialization beyond Britain
Other countries took notice of Britain's success and began to copy its examples. With the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the countries of the European continent quickly adopted British inventions and achieved their own pattern of technological innovation and economic growth. By the last decades of the 19th century, western European countries as well as the United States and Japan had industrialized their economies. Outside of western Europe industrialization proceeded more gradually. For the first time there was a dramatic gap that emerged between Western and non-Western levels of economic production. Scholars are still struggling to explain these differences.
Industrialization in Continental Europe
Throughout Europe, the 18th century was an era of agricultural improvement, population growth, expanding foreign trade and growing cottage industry. When the pace of British industry began to adopt the new methods and they were profitable, other European countries followed their ways. During the period of the revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars from 1793 to 1815 however, western Europe experienced tremendous political and social upheaval that temporarily halted economic development. With the return of peace in 1815, however, western European countries again began to play catch-up. Because British goods were being produced very economically and there goods had come to dominate world markets, it was difficult for other countries to catch up. The technology of steam power had grown much more expensive as well. Steam power involved large investments in the Iron and coal industries and required the existence of railroads. Continental business people had difficulty finding the large sums of money the new methods demanded. British technology had become so advanced and complicated that few engineers or skilled technicians outside England understood it. Laborers also resisted working in factories. Advantages that western European nations had were: 1) Most had a rich tradition of putting-out enterprise, which allowed them with experienced merchant capitalists and skilled urban artisans. 2) Other nations could simply "borrow" the new methods developed in Great Britain. British inventors had to discover and implement new technologies on their own. 3) European countries had strong, independent governments that did not fall under foreign political control. There governments would use the power of the state to promote industry and catch up with Britain. In Belgium, France and German states, key indicators of modern industrial development-railway mileage, iron and coal productions and steam-engines capacity- increased annual rates of 5-10%. As a result, rail networks were completed in western and much of central Europe and the leading continental countries mastered the industrial technologies. In the early 1870s Britain was still Europe's most industrial nation, but a select handful of nations had closed the gap. Western European countries along with the United States became technological innovators and enjoyed sustained economic growth that made them the wealthiest nations in the world.
