The Netherlanders
In respect to temperament and manners, to the origin andlanguage of their inhabitants, no less than to their politicalconnection and geographical position, Holland, Flanders, andBrabant constituted portions of the German Empire.The morefrequent visits of Charlemagne and his residence in the vicinity ofthese countries must have exercised a much more powerful influenceon their civilisation than on that of more distant Germanterritories.Furthermore, Flanders and Brabant were speciallyfavoured by nature as respects agriculture and manufactures, asHolland was as respects cattle-farming and commerce.
Nowhere in Germany was internal trade so powerfully aided byextensive and excellent sea and river navigation as in thesemaritime states.The beneficial effects of these means of watertransport on the improvement of agriculture and on the growth ofthe towns must in these countries, even at an early period, haveled to the removal of impediments which hindered their progress andto the construction of artificial canals.The prosperity ofFlanders was especially promoted by the circumstance that herruling Counts recognised the value of public security, of goodroads, manufactures, and flourishing cities before all other Germanpotentates, Favoured by the nature of their territory, they devotedthemselves with zeal to the extirpation of the robber knights andof wild beasts.Active commercial intercourse between the citiesand the country, the extension of cattle-farming, especially ofsheep, and of the culture of flax and hemp, naturally followed; andwherever the raw material is abundantly produced, and security ofproperty and of intercourse is maintained, labour and skill forworking up that material will soon be found.Meanwhile the Countsof Flanders did not wait until chance should furnish them withwoollen weavers, for history informs us that they imported suchartificers from foreign countries.
Supported by the reciprocal trade of the Hanseatic League andof Rolland, Flanders soon rose by her woollen manufactures to bethe central point of the commerce of the North, just as Venice byher industry and her shipping had become the centre of the commerceof the South.The merchant shipping, and reciprocal trade of theHanseatic League and the Dutch, together with the manufacturingtrade of Flanders, constituted one great whole, a real nationalindustry.A policy of commercial restriction could not in theircase be deemed necessary, because as yet no competition had arisenagainst the manufacturing supremacy of Flanders.That under suchcircumstances manufacturing industry thrives best under free trade,the Counts of Flanders understood without having read Adam Smith.
Quite in the spirit of the present popular theory, Count RobertIII, when the King of England requested him to exclude the Scotchfrom the Flemish markets, replied, 'Flanders has always consideredherself a free market for all nations, and it does not consist withher interests to depart from that principle.'
After Flanders had continued for centuries to be the chiefmanufacturing country, and Bruges the chief market, of NorthernEurope, their manufactures and commerce passed over to theneighbouring province of Brabant, because the Counts of Flanderswould not continue to grant them those concessions to which in theperiod of their great prosperity they had laid claim.Antwerp thenbecame the principal seat of commerce, and Louvain the chiefmanufacturing city of Northern Europe.In consequence of thischange of circumstances, the agriculture of Brabant soon rose to ahigh state of prosperity.The change in early times from payment ofimposts in kind to their payment in money, and, above all, thelimitation of the feudal system, also tended especially to itsadvantage.
In the meantime the Dutch, who appeared more and more upon thescene, with united power, as rivals to the Hanseatic League, laidthe foundation of their future power at sea.Nature had conferredbenefits on this small nation both by her frowns and smiles.Theirperpetual contests with the inroads of the sea necessarilydeveloped in them a spirit of enterprise, industry, and thrift,while the land which they had reclaimed and protected by suchindescribable exertions must have seemed to them a property towhich too much care could not be devoted.Restricted by Natureherself to the pursuits of navigation, of fisheries, and theproduction of meat, cheese, and butter, the Dutch were compelled tosupply their requirements of grain, timber, fuel, and clothingmaterials by their marine carrying trade, their exports of dairyproduce, and their fisheries.
Those were the principal causes why the Hansards were at alater period gradually excluded by the Dutch from the trade withthe north-eastern countries.The Dutch required to import fargreater quantities of agricultural produce and of timber than didthe Hansards, who were chiefly supplied with these articles by theterritories immediately adjoining their cities.And, further, thevicinity to Holland of the Belgian manufacturing districts, and ofthe Rhine with its extensive, fertile, and vine-clad banks, and itsstream navigable up to the mountains of Switzerland, constitutedgreat advantages for the Dutch.