4 
DEVELOPMENT 
Stuttgart it took 40 hours, of which 15 hours 
were taken up with intervals at 13 different 
places. Between Dresden and Madgeburg, a 
distance of about 100 miles, no less than 16 
different Custom Houses were in existence. 
We must not forget that up to 1803 there were 
no less than three hundred sovereigns and princes 
in Germany. Not until then was she divided into 
only thirty-eight monarchies, all of which regarded 
each other as foreign in respect of Customs 
legislation, so that there were thirty-eight Custom 
frontiers. Naturally, commerce and intercourse 
were hopelessly hampered in consequence. Fried 
rich List, the eminent writer, made a very com 
prehensive comparison in attributing to these 
Customs boundaries the same effect as if each 
member of a human organism was tied under 
neath, so that the circulation of blood is cut off. 
In order to transact business between Hamburg 
and Austria, or between Berlin and Switzerland, 
one had to cross ten different States, to study ten 
different Customs regulations, and to pay ten 
times Transit Customs. Furthermore, the large 
variety of coins and currencies and of weights 
and measures considerably complicated business 
transactions. 
Germany’s new economic history is usually 
divided into three periods; the first one from