530 Ch. 14 • The Industrial Revolution
Map 14.4 The Zollverein (German Customs Union), 1834 States and citieswithin the German Customs Union. Led by Prussia, it was the first attempt by the
German states to reduce customs duties and to coordinate economic activity.
The German states took a major step toward an expansion of commerce
and manufacturing when they formed the Zollverein, a customs union, in
1834 (see Map 14.4). The Zollverein was the brainchild of economist
Friedrich List (1789-1846), a tanner’s son who became an outspoken pro
ponent of railway building. Calling a customs union within the German
states and railway construction the “Siamese twins” of economic expan
sion, List proposed in 1819 the abolition of all tariffs within the German
states, although, unlike many other liberal economists, he insisted that
protective tariffs be raised to shield German industries from British
imports. List, a fiery advocate for the political unification of the German
states, believed that only through tariff reform could Germans save them
selves from being “debased to be carriers of water and hewers of wood for
the Britons... treated even worse than the downtrodden Hindu.” The
Zollverein included four-fifths of the territory of the German states. It con
tributed modestly to German economic and industrial growth, expanding
markets for manufactured goods.