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Commercial and Financial Legislation of Europe and America
Commercial and Financial Legislation of Europe and America Author:John Macgregor General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1841 Original Publisher: H. Hooper Subjects: Commercial policy Finance Tariff Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free tri... more »al access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER XL FISCAL CONDITION OF PRUSSIA. The fiscal condition of a country like Prussia, not eminently- favoured by natural advantages, yet in a prosperous state of credit, forms a subject of valuable consideration for legislators. Frederick I. taxed his small kingdom enormously, in order to form and maintain a large army. Yet his son Frederick the Great, notwithstanding the expenses of his wars, which wrested the valuable province of Silesia from Austria, left at his death his country without a national debt, and a large sum in his treasury. After his bloody wars of defence and conquest, one of the chief measures of his administration was, to encourage general industry, and to ameliorate the condition of the land-proprietors, and especially that of the nobles of Silesia, who had been ruined during these wars. He found them and the landlords generally unable to improve their lands. In order to afford them relief, and to enable them and the cultivators of the soil to stock their farms, and to purchase agricultural implements, he established, in the first in- tance, in 1769 (as an experimental one) a land or territorial bank, (Landschafts-casse) in Silesia. The success of this bank having surpassed all calculation, the inhabitants of other provinces solicited and obtained similiar institutions of credit to that ofSilesia. In 1777 a territorial bank was established in the March of Brandenburg; in 1781, in Pomerania ; in 1787, in Western Prussia ; in 1788, in Eastern Prussia; and afterwards in the Grand Duchy of Posen. These inst...« less