From an industrially in significant country Prussia during the last 40 years, with the remainder of Germany, has become a manufacturing centre of great im portance 'Among the industries that have grown up with almost spasmodic swiftness in Prussia within that period are the beet-sugar manufacture, in which Germany is leading the world and which flourishes mainly in the cen tral provinces of Prussia; cotton spinning and weaving, which are of great importance in the Rhine province; the linen manufacture of West phalia and Silesia; the woolen industry of the district around Aachen, as well as the silk and velvet production of Krefeld, Elberfeld, etc. In money value, however, the making of machinery of every description overtops all; Berlin, Magdeburg, Buckau and several large towns in Westphalia and along the Rhine, lead ing. The iron and steel industry centres in the coal region of the Ruhr Basin and is carried on on a very large scale, as in Essen, Remscheid, Suhl, Solingen, Diisseldorf, Elberfeld, Dort mund, etc. The most conside•able ship yards in Prussia are located in Kid, Danzig, Emden, Stettin and Elbing. Cologne, Garlitz, KOnigsberg and Diisseldorf are also noted for the making of smaller machines and mechanical devices, such as sewing machines, cash registers, typewriters, telephones, etc. Glass, paper, porcelain and pottery are turned out in the provinces of Saxony, Silesia and the Rhine, while the chemical and dye industry is mainly carried on in Berlin and in a number of towns by the Main and Rhine, as Hochst, Elberfeld, etc. Of those engaged in manufacturing and industrial establishments in 1911, 6,906,526 were employed in Prussia.
Transportation.-- Prussia is well provided with all means of communication and transpor tation. The first railroad was built in 1838 and since 1866, after Prussia's annexation of Han over, Hesse-Nassau and Schleswig-Holstein, the railroad system was rapidly extended, until, with one or two exceptions, of the larger coun tries Prussia possesses the closest network of rails. The same is true of her canal sytem. The shape of Prussia being twice as long as broad, these two systems, too, had to be laid out accordingly. Communication between the eastern and western provinces of Prussia is even more rapid and cheap than between the southern and northern ones. Steel lighters of large tonnage and small draft are now doing on the canals and rivers the transportation of the larger part of the bulky goods, manufac tured goods and foodstuffs, carrying the latter westward and the former eastward. An enormous and steadily rising tonnage of such vessels, peculiarly adapted to their task, is de voted to this traffic. It is to the excellence of her water routes and railroad lines that Prussia owes much of its rise to economic prosperity. Dating from the eighties the Prussian railroads were gradually purchased by the state, follow ing out a plan of Bismarck's, and by special agreements (called nKonventionenn) with neighboring smaller states, such as Hesse, Saxony, Bavaria, and by embodying the rail roads of a number of other adjoining states of less size, the serviceableness and income of the government-owned roads were guaranteed. The proportion of railway mileage in Prussia has now caught up with that of Great Britain, though in point of volume of traffic it is con siderably behind, owing to the canal competi tion and to the fact that military-strategic rea sons, rather than purely economic ones, have been deciding factors in laying out the rail roads of Prussia. Significantly the most impor tant trunk line of Prussia is that which runs from the western frontier at Herbesthal through Cologne, Berlin, Konigsberg in the direction of Paris-Petrograd. For 1912 the Prussian rail road systems comprised 37,698 kilometers in length, all but 2,559 of which is state-owned and all but 520 kilometers being broad-gauge.
It is admitted that in Prussia government own ership of railroads has proved an unqualified success from the financial and commercial point. Before the outbreak of the war the
Prussian government derived just about one fourth of its entire revenues from the profits of operating its railroads, while by controlling freight schedules at all times it was also enabled to lend a helping hand to industry as a whole. As to its merchant marine, next to that of Hamburg and Bremen, it was the most import ant of the several German states. Though the ports of the Baltic freeze over in winter, the one of Stettin, being nearest Berlin and, there fore, of greatest moment, is kept free by ice breakers. Emden, a Prussian port on the North Sea, already of economic intended to become the rival of the two ports near by. The figures as to the size of the Prussian merchant fleet will have to be modified after the war. In 1913 the number of vessels was 2,329 of 318,646 tons net Banking and Finance.— The sys tem is the same in Prussia as in the remainder of Germany. The Reichsbank (Imperial Bank) is at the same time the fiscal agent of Prussia, and its resources, privileges and emolu ments have been repeatedly widened and ex panded since 1871. Prussia, of course, is financially in a dominating position for the whole of Germany, since Berlin has become by far the most important financial centre of Germany, having outstripped Frankfort long ago. In Berlin there are 11 great corporate banks (aside from some powerful private banks) and the volume of business transacted by them is nearly as large as that of the Reichs bank with its 325 branches. The Deutsche Bank is the largest institution, followed by the Dresdner Bank, the Diskonto-Gesellschaft, etc. The Deutsche Bank has done enormous serv ice in the spread of German commerce abroad, financing many transoceanic enterprises. Its capital and assets have increased 50-fold since 1871. Of vast importance, too, is the Preus sische Seehandlung (Prussian Marine Associa tion), which was founded by Frederick the Great and which was the main financial sup port of the government for over a century. The Preussische Seehandlung was the forerun ner of the credit mobiliers in France and other countries. While its capital stock is less than $10,000,000, its assets amounted, when the World War broke out, to $130,000.000. The Prussian (and German) banking system pos sesses great elasticity, a fact which is largely responsible for the avoidance of recurring great financial panics, at least since the one of 1873. As to finance, it has expanded and con tracted by leaps and bounds similarly to that of other countries. In a general way it may be said that since 1891 Prussian finance has made enormous strides. As in all other civilized countries, however, the state itself has veered a good deal in its finances, depend ing largely in this on the diminishing or in creasing revenues or the expenditures and vast economic state enterprises that have been um dertaken from time to time, such as the pur chase of the Prussian railroads, for instance. A certain degree of stability, though, is a consequence of the fact that a large section of the regular resources are coming in steadily and in predetermined bulk, such as the profits of the various state properties(railroads, fiscal lands, mines, forests, etc.). Taxation is, on the whole, on a satisfactory basis, a progressive income tax and other imposts being quite fairly apportioned. It must be kept in mind that Prussian finances are quite separate from those of the empire. From 1901 the Prussian budget has shown a rapidly rising scale. In that year it was (in marks) 2,885,017,665, for revenues, and 2,688,595,268 for expenses, while in 1915 it had risen to 4,848,881,000, for revenues, and the same (estimated) for expenses. The public debt of Prussia has likewise bounded upward for many years; in 1914 it amounted to 10,355, 537,145 marks. By far the larger part of its load of debt has been incurred, up to the war, for productive enterprises, such as the acquisi tion of the railroads, domains, mines, etc.