=300. Reforms in Prussia favoring economic development.=—In regard to their internal conditions, however, the territories of the Prussian state enjoyed a great advantage over others in Germany. The obstacles to trade in the form of tolls and staples were removed when political interests did not require their maintenance. The tariff systems, enormously complicated and cumbrous, were revised. The growth of manufactures was furthered by attracting skilled artisans from other countries; and the city of Berlin received a great stimulus from the Huguenots who found a refuge there. Some of the worst abuses of the gilds were reformed, and manufactures were protected, as in France, by customs duties and by royal privileges. New methods were applied in agriculture, and new land was opened to settlement and cultivation; a large number of the laborers, however, still remained unfree. It would be easy to add many details, but in closing this section on Germany the reader is again advised that the important side of Prussian history in this period was political, not economic. Prussia was preparing herself for the work of unifying Germany, and to accomplish that work a strong government was needed rather than a rich people. The riches have come to Germany in our own time. =301. Contrast of Prussia and Austria.=—Prussia was a state which started in the heart of Germany (near Berlin), and remained almost entirely German as it spread. Austria, on the other hand, was originally a territory on the southern border of the German people, the rulers of which managed by skill and luck to extend their power over fragments of adjoining peoples of a different stock, over Bohemians and other Slavs (relatives of the Russians), and over the Magyars or Hungarians (relatives of the Turks). These other peoples were behind the Germans in their industrial development; they had come into Europe later, had been less subject to civilizing influences and more exposed to internal quarrels and wars. Furthermore, the Austrian Germans were behind the other Germans, on whom they were industrially dependent in the sixteenth century. Germans from the North took their manufactures into Austria for sale, carried on the trade of Austria and controlled the mines of Austria.