ABSTRACT
The importance of the gold standard lies in the fact that European nations assumed its critical role of supporting the expansion of British trade under the legacy of free trade, encouraged more centralised administrations of the new national governments. France, Germany and United States founded their own central bank, in a similar way to the Bank of England, serving to keep the currency at the regulated gold parity rate. The central bank of Germany was founded to empower the Berlin government and the Prussian Bank who owned the gold reserve. German steamship investors made use of the existing harbour infrastructure and credit activity to accommodate growth in all related steamship investments in Hamburg. The New Course launched after the dismissal of Bismarck in 1890 was a turning point, in the sense, that in German politics, the advocates of free trade and market expansion experienced a relief of mounting political pressure from the conservative agrarians.
