From Domestic Manufacture to Industrial Revolution
Herbert Kisch
http://books.google.com/books?id=vnA5uwGZvZ4C
pages 203-210 (and related notes)
- Berg noted as singularly and uniquely industrialized for the continent - it is compared to Britain
- issue arises substantively in 1810
- 16 million francs lost business for Bergish manufacturers
- this loss "recouped and more than recouped" by for the factory owners by moving operations to the other side of the Rhine
- the problem largely stemming from the failure of incorporating Berg into the Empire : leaving it with the restrictions of the Continental System and with none of its benefits in terms of access to a common market
- loss of employment in the effected industry (the weaving of coarse cotton goods), combined with enforcement of anti-smuggling laws, combined with conscription leading to outbreaks of protest by the workers
- "the Grand Duchy of Berg is the only manufacturing country where the inevitiable hardships of the Continental System remain uncompensated" - le comte Jacques-Claude Beugnot (1761-1835), administrateur du grand-duché de Berg.
OK - N is very, very, very bad. He caused a reduction of 16 million francs in income in Berg - by not letting them join the Empire ! That would be about 16 francs per person, or about the purchasing power needed to buy 1 liter of dry white beans per month.
Horrible, evil, detestable N.
Since you might not have noticed, I repeat myself :
We look at the French imperial economic policy goals and we see a consistent attempt to develop local agriculture, infrastructure and military manufacturing - at the expense of banking, insurance, trading, the exploitation of colonial assets and the production of commercial goods (and thus in summary quite contrary to both the British economic model and British economic hegemony).
Is this so clearly "wrong" that we can trumpet "N. is bad" like happily braying donkeys ?