To atone in some measure for these necessary results of a protective system, the government attempted also to extend aid to foreign commerce. Triest and Fiume were made free-ports, _i.e._, they were put on the outside of the tariff frontier to attract trade. Venice was forced to renounce her claim to the exclusive right to navigate the Adriatic, and commercial treaties were made with Turkey, Russia, and states in northern Africa. Consuls were sent out to represent Austrian interests in foreign countries, and attempts were made to secure a share even in the trade with India. =305. Austrian commerce still backward in 1800.=—Still Austrian trade attained no great development. The government which gave with one hand took with the other. Special privileges did not make up for the general weakness of the productive organization. Rulers complained that in spite of all their efforts commerce languished. Most of the foreign trade was absorbed by five companies, which divided the field. Two of them were limited locally, trading with Turkey and with Asia Minor respectively; while the other three traded in special wares with various countries. One imported colonial wares like sugar; another exported linens; while the third exported various raw materials to Italy, France, and Spain. During the wars beginning in 1776 Austrian merchants attempted to build up a trade with North America, and an agent of the government was installed at Philadelphia in 1783, but during the following years of peace Austria had no chance of success in competition with trade rivals. QUESTIONS AND TOPICS 1. Write a report on the political constitution of Germany at the end of the Middle Ages, and the resulting conditions. [Baring-Gould, Story of Germany, chaps. 46, 52; Seebohm, Prot. rev., 26-33; Janssen, Hist., vol. 2, book 4, chap. 1; Freytag, Pictures, XVIIIth cent., vol. 1, chap. 4.] 2. Development of business and business methods at the beginning of the period. [See above, chap. 18; Cunningham’s chapter on Economic change in Cambridge mod. hist., vol. 1; Janssen, Hist., vol. 2, book 3, chap. 3; Freytag, Pictures, XVth cent., vol. 1, chap. 10.] 3. Condition of manufacturing. [Janssen, Hist., vol. 2, book 3, chap. 2.] 4. Condition of agriculture. [Janssen, Hist., vol. 1, book 3, chap. 1.] 5. Decline of the Baltic trade. [Zimmern, Hansa towns, period 3.] 6. Decline of the Hansa in England. [Zimmern, 324-353] 7. Write a brief report on the commercial history of (_a_) Nuremberg, (_b_) Augsburg. [Encyc.; Guide books of south Germany.] 8. Class conflicts, political and economic troubles about 1500. [Seebohm, ** Prot. rev., 136-140; Janssen, Hist., vol. 4, book 7; Frank Goodrich, *A social reformer of the fifteenth century, Yale Review, Aug., 1896, 5: 168-181.] 9. Do the Germans control the mouths of all the rivers mentioned in sect. 295 at the present time?