Cost of living in German towns

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 866449027

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-93831

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Cost of living in German towns

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Stat. Off.

Year of publication:: 1908

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (LXI, 548 Seiten)

Collection:: Economics Books

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248 HAMBURG. The entire municipal area of Hamburg covers 19,027 acres, occupied in 1905 as follows :—Covered with houses, including courtyards, 5,366 acres ; roads, streets, and railways, 2,470 acres ; public gardens and parks, 671 acres ; cemeteries in use, 63 acres ; gardens, forest, and agricultural land, 7,350 acres ; and water, 3,107 acres. The outer area includes the districts of Geestlande, Marschlande, Bergedorf, and Ritzebüttel, with Cuxhaven at the mouth of the Elbe, having together an area of 83,237 acres, making the area of the entire State territory 102,264 acres (160 square miles). Hamburg’s growth by the absorption of a large immigrant population was specially stimulated after the middle of last century by the fact that within this Free State the right to a free choice of occupations was legalised some years before the principle was embodied in the legislation of the North German Confederation. The exceptional increase of population and the large addition from the outside which occurred between 1885 and 1890 were due to the inclusion of Hamburg in 1888 within the German Customs Union. Up to that year the city and port of Hamburg, together with the “old town ” of Altona— Ottensen being, therefore, excepted—and Wandsbeck, had constituted a customs- free area. The result was that all goods whether imported or manufactured on the spot, sent from Hamburg and Altona into the territory of the Customs Union were dutiable unless specially immune under the Customs Tariff. Hence the carrying on of industries was in both towns a matter of difficulty, and while Hamburg enterprise was compelled to seek an outlet in the “customs inland ” across the Prussian frontier, Altona’s industries became concentrated in Ottensen. The inclusion of the sister towns in the Customs Union of the Empire removed the disabilities under which they had laboured, but if they were hence forth theoretically free to establish such industries as they would without the obstacle of duty-protected German markets, it was now no longer so easy to do this as it would have been twenty or thirty years before. Germany’s industrial advance had already begun ; the great staple industries had found their natural centres, and to this extent the relief to local enterprise came too late. Altona for a time positively lost ground, for many undertakings which had taken root in the town were removed to Hamburg owing to the more favourable conditions there prevailing, and its increase of population during the decade 1858-1895 was far less relatively than that of Hamburg. While, as has been shown, 73 per cent, of Hamburg’s increase during the period 1885-1890 was due to excess of immigration over removals, the percentage of Altona’s increase due to that cause during the same period was only 48, and during the following quinquennial period 4,406 more persons left Altona than took up their homes there, with the result that the nett increase of population was only 4 per cent. Hamburg’s expansion since 1888 has been unique, though it has been more commercial than industrial. As a result of its admission to the Customs Union, new harbours and docks, with warehouses of various kinds, had to be constructed at a cost exceeding five million pounds sterling, of which the Imperial Treasury contributed two millions by way of solatium. There is still, however, a large customs-free territory {Freihafengebiet), in which merchandise is received in bond for transhipment, subject to the usual duties if it enters Hamburg or any other part of the Customs Union. This Free Harbour area is 2,518 acres in extent, 1,245 acres being water. In 1906 the aggregate number of sea-going ships (including coasters) which entered the port was 15,778 of 11,039,000 tons register, and the number which cleared was 15,790 with 11,008,000 tons register. Of the vessels which entered, 3,913 with 3,814,997 tons register were British, and of those which cleared, 3,902 with 3,795,471 tons register were British. The total value of the Hamburg merchant fleet was estimated in 1905 at over twenty million pounds. Altona’s shipping trade is for the most part an incoming trade. The industries of Hamburg and district include shipbuilding, machine works, iron foundries, rice and corn mills, oil refineries, chemical, rubber, and asbestos factories, margarine factories, wool-combing, jute spinning and weaving, glass bottle blowing, tobacco and cigar manufactures, and a considerable clothing trade. Altona’s special industries include some important engineering works, which are largely dependent on the shipping trade, glass, margarine, and chemical works, timber yards and saw mills.

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