ABSTRACT
Customs frontiers had been abolished between the Swiss cantons; between Austria and Hungary, Liechtenstein, Parma and Modena; between Russia and her Polish provinces; between the Zollverein and the Tax Union; and between Denmark and the duchies of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg. The consumption of pig-iron in the Zollverein rose from 393,000 to 900,000 tons in the ten years 1854–1864 while the imports of pig-iron declined from 125,000 to under 100,000 tons. In 1858 the Union of German Economists was founded. This powerful organisation held annual conferences at which demands were made for a thorough simplification and reform of the Zollverein tariff. The improvement of communications—particularly railway construction—continued in the ’fifties and this enabled industrial regions to come into closer contact with consumers. Contemporaries viewed from different angles the position of the German workers in the period of industrial expansion in the ’fifties.
