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Updated: July 23, 2025
They have first looked to the north and the north-west, and they have reflected that the Rhine ought to belong to the Vaterland; that Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Antwerp are the natural German harbours; that Denmark, Holland, and Flemish Belgium are the outposts of Germany for the transit commerce of Europe; and that all these outposts ought to be included either in an economic Zollverein or in a political confederation.
Wheaton, our minister at Berlin, to negotiate a treaty with the Germanic States composing the Zollverein if it could be done, stipulating, as far as it was practicable to accomplish it, for a reduction of the heavy and onerous duties levied on our tobacco and other leading articles of agricultural production, and yielding in return on our part a reduction of duties on such articles the product of their industry as should not come into competition, or but a limited one, with articles the product of our manufacturing industry.
It is not surprising that, under these circumstances, the Grand Duchy joined the Prussian Zollverein, and so drew nearer to Germany, in spite of the independent character of its inhabitants, who have strenuously resisted any attempt at absorption into Germany.
The Congress of the Deputies of the Zollverein, at Stuttgard, have in a new tariff, which was to take effect on the 1st of January, besides some minor alterations of an unfavourable kind, decreed, upon the proposal of Prussia, that goods mixed of cotton and wool, if of more than one colour, shall pay fifty thalers the centner, instead of thirty; that is, instead of a very high, shall be liable to an exorbitant, and, as it may prove, a prohibitory duty.
Joining the Confederation of the Rhine in 1807, they supported Napoleon until 1813, when they transferred their allegiance to the allies; in 1815 they became members of the Germanic Confederation, and in 1828 joined, somewhat reluctantly, the Prussian Zollverein.
Yet, though Prussia had concluded military agreements with the states of southern Germany and held them also by means of the Zollverein, this was far from bringing about a peaceful realization of unity. The southern states, not merely the sovereigns only, but the peoples, have always had little taste for Prussian leadership, and after 1866 this feeling was very visible.
He was for an imperial tariff, a thing made in Germany, and called a Zollverein. But his practical experience and personal observation taught him that proposals for closer union with the Colonies must come from the Colonies themselves. The negroes were a difficulty. They were not really fit for self-government, as the statesmen of the American Union had found.
With free-trade in the ascendant, and, to the maturest minds of the time, unanswerably sound in theory, Elgin had to dismiss schemes of British preference from his mind; and, towards the end of his rule, when American policy was irritating Canada, he had even to restrict the scope within which Canadian retaliation might be practised. There could be no imperial Zollverein.
That is the blunt reality of the Asiatic situation. It has already been pointed out in these chapters that if the alliance of the Pledged Allies is indeed to be permanent, it implies something in the nature of a Zollverein, a common policy towards the rest of the world and an arrangement involving a common control over the dependencies of all the Allies.
But perhaps the most important measure of the Prussian Government at this time was the foundation of the famous Zollverein or Customs Union of various North German States in 1834. The far-reaching character of this measure was only shown later, being, in fact, the means and basis by and on which the political and military ascendancy of Prussia over all Germany was assured.
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