Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen: Review of Three Works on German Trade Policy (1900)

Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen’s review examines three recent publications: Walther Borgius’s Deutschland und die Vereinigten Staaten, Richard Ehrenberg’s Handelspolitik, and Die Handelspolitik des Deutschen Reiches vom Frankfurter Frieden bis zur Gegenwart. Its three numbered sections move from German-American competition to the purposes and instruments of trade policy, then to the German Empire’s commercial history. Across these assessments, Schullern links economic development to political power while criticizing sectional interests that obscure the interdependence of the national economy.

The first section welcomes Borgius’s accessible account of the facts and disputes relevant to a future German-American commercial treaty, particularly uncertainties surrounding most-favoured-nation treatment. American industrial expansion and the acquisition of Cuba increase the United States’ economic importance even if population growth and soil exhaustion diminish its threat as a grain exporter. Schullern consequently treats competition as extending well beyond agricultural tariffs:

Deutschland und die Union liegen ja nicht nur auf ihren heimischen, sondern auch auf gar vielen anderen Märkten im Concurrenzkampfe; wer zuerst am Platze ist, wer bessere Ware und wer sie billiger verkaufen kann, vielfach aber auch, wer politisch mehr zu imponieren vermag, wird Herr der Situation sein.

English translation: Germany and the Union are, after all, engaged in competitive struggle not only in their home markets but in a great many others as well; whoever is first on the spot, whoever can sell better goods and sell them more cheaply, but in many cases also whoever is able to impress more politically, will be master of the situation.

Market access, product quality, and price thus stand alongside political influence as determinants of commercial success. Schullern draws an explicitly naval conclusion: Germany’s continued economic expansion depends on a capable fleet, including more than merchant shipping. His regret that Germany failed to exploit the Spanish-American War to outstrip its competitor makes this section an intervention in world-market rivalry as well as an appraisal of Borgius. He nevertheless distinguishes the book’s practical usefulness from its statistical limitations:

Dass die Schrift mit ihren statistischen Daten vielfach den Theoretiker nicht befriedigen wird, sei nur nebenbei bemerkt; das ist aber wohl auch nicht ihr Bestreben und für eine allgemeine Orientierung sind die Ziffern genau genug.

English translation: That the work, with its statistical data, will in many respects fail to satisfy the theorist may be remarked only in passing; but that is presumably not its endeavour either, and for a general orientation the figures are exact enough.

The second section summarizes Ehrenberg’s five lectures on trade policy’s nature and goals, history, instruments, Germany’s current position, and its future prospects. Schullern reports Ehrenberg’s conception of trade policy as promoting national economic development while directing it toward a world economy, ultimately making itself unnecessary. This developmental horizon differs from the sharper language of national rivalry in the preceding section, though Schullern does not explicitly resolve the tension. He praises the historical survey’s clarity and finds fruitful ideas in the concluding lecture, particularly its recommendations concerning economic education for future officials. Colonial expansion also figures in the lectures on Germany’s present and future.

The third section assesses a historical account intended to clarify public opinion amid conflicts between organized interests. Its sequence runs from Article XI of the Treaty of Frankfurt through the Zollverein and foreign commercial policies to German trade policy itself, with Bismarck occupying a commanding role. Schullern commends its compact treatment of the struggle over expiring commercial treaties but challenges its portrayal of Austria-Hungary:

Der Kampf um die nun bald ablaufenden Handelsverträge findet eine gedrängte, aber im wesentlichen erschöpfende Schilderung, bei der freilich die österreichisch-ungarische Handelspolitik in ein, wie uns scheint, unverdient trübes Licht zu stehen kommt; ein Schwanken in den Anschauungen trat bei uns nicht häufiger ein, als in Deutschland, und war viel erklärlicher, als im Reiche (Seite 302).

English translation: The struggle over the commercial treaties now soon to expire receives a compressed but essentially exhaustive account, in which, to be sure, Austro-Hungarian commercial policy comes to stand in what seems to us an undeservedly unfavourable light; a wavering of views occurred with us no more frequently than in Germany, and was far more explicable than in the Reich (page 302).

This objection qualifies his admiration for Germany’s sustained preparation for treaty negotiations. He acknowledges its purposeful collection of evidence and vigorous public debate, yet deplores interest groups whose rigid separation blinds them to the organic connection among producing classes. The German commercial congress’s resolutions of March 1898 constitute a notable exception. His concluding explanation of Germany’s economic success returns to the political premise of the first section: imperial power ultimately compels divergent forces to serve the general interest. The review’s significance lies in this combination of informed commercial-policy appraisal, advocacy of national power, and insistence that economic interests must be understood as mutually dependent.