Röpke’s biographical encyclopedia entry, originally published in 1931 and republished in 1937, presents Julius Faucher (1820–78) as a German economist and publicist whose free-trade advocacy accompanied an active concern for social reform. Its compact structure moves from Faucher’s place in the German Manchester school through his organizational and journalistic work to his campaign over urban housing. The concluding judgment challenges the view that this liberal economic movement was indifferent to the social consequences of industrialism.
Under the influence of Cobden and Bastiat, Faucher advocated a resolutely liberal economic policy, particularly free trade. Röpke traces this commitment through practical institutions: the free-trade club founded with Prince-Smith and others in 1846, editorial work in Germany and England, assistance to Cobden, and the journal Faucher established in 1863. These details portray him as an organizer and publicist whose importance lay in disseminating ideas and advancing reform:
Faucher and his group contributed substantially toward the abolition of the many barriers that hampered the economic expansion of Germany.
The entry then shifts from trade barriers to urban land tenure. Faucher attributed poor housing in large cities to land profiteering and the exploitation of building sites for tenement houses. Röpke records this causal diagnosis without developing its economic mechanism or specifying the reforms proposed. What matters to his assessment is Faucher’s energetic engagement with housing conditions:
The energy with which he set about improving housing conditions shows the injustice of the current opinion which charges the German Manchester school with indifference to the social problems created by industrialism.
Faucher thus supplies a concrete counterexample to a general historical accusation. The entry’s interpretive force lies in bringing economic liberalism and social concern into the same biographical frame, rather than treating them as incompatible commitments.
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