28

DEVELOPMENT

again  booming,  prices  soared  upwards  more  than
ever,  fortunes  were  swiftly  made  by  speculation
and  by  promotions.  In  four-and-a-half  years  from
the  middle  of  1870  until  1874,  857  new  companies
were  founded,  with  a  capital  of  £1,653  millions  as
against  only  295  companies  with  £1,202  millions
sterling  in  19!  years  from  1851  to  1870.
A  process  of  liquidation  and  winding-up  of
banks  and  companies,  however,  set  in  after  1873,
to  be  followed  by  a  long  period  of  hesitation  and
probation,  in  which  everybody  seems  to  have  given
close  attention  to  serious  work,  and  in  which  the
greatest  efforts  were  made  to  improve  and  perfect
the  whole  economic  system.  The  introduction
of  a  uniform  currency  based  on  gold,  as  well  as
the  introduction  of  uniform  weights  and  measures,
and  the  establishment  of  the  Reichsbank  as
central  institution  and  principal  note-issuing
bank,  which  gradually  spread  its  net  of  branches
and  agencies  all  over  the  country,  thus  getting
into  contact  with  the  whole  commercial  and
industrial  community,  were  important  progressive
measures.
At  the  end  of  the  seventh  decade,  the  expropriation ­
  of  the  railways,  which  were  joint  stock
undertakings,  by  the  Government,  chiefly  on
strategical,  but  also  on  fiscal  grounds,  brought
about  a  far  extending  dislocation  of  capital,  since