In Galicia, the position of the Jews became unsettled, owing to a variety of causes.[46] Although one of the least advanced among the Austrian crown lands, Galicia has experienced within the last half-century an industrial and commercial development along with the rest of the Empire. This resulted in the growth of a middle class particularly among the Poles, which began to compete for supremacy with the Jews. The improvements in transportation and communication, the organization of agricultural syndicates, for the purpose of directly purchasing and selling the produce of the peasants, and the creation of rural credit societies, helped considerably to displace the Jewish middlemen and traders as well as the Jewish money-lenders, who dealt largely with the peasantry. The movement to develop Galicia industrially was fostered on national lines by these Polish organizations, which carried on an extensive propaganda and systematically organized economic boycotts against the Jews. "Do not buy of Jews", "Do not patronize Jewish artisans", became familiar cries in Galicia as in other parts of Austria. The process of wrestling the monopoly of industry, trade and commerce from the Jews in favor of the Polish petty merchants and artisans was considerably accelerated by the official bodies, the autonomous Galician _Diet_ and the municipal boards, controlled chiefly by the Polish-Catholic nobility, who saw in the national-industry movement a means of capturing the votes of the middle class and of thus retaining their position as leaders of the Polish people. Communal funds were used to establish Poles in business. Attempts were made to take away from the Jews the small-salt and tobacco trades. The taxes on the taverns were increased. In the public financial institutions organized for various purposes Jews were not given representation. In nearly all the activities designed to promote the interest of the urban population and the peasantry, the Jews were systematically excluded by the local authorities. Added to this, the increasing distress of the Galician peasants has reacted strongly upon the Jews, who depend so largely upon their buying power. The poverty of the peasantry, the competition for the control of the rural market created by public and private agencies, added to the increasing competition in the towns from other sections of the population, have all co-operated to create a great surplus, in proportion to the population, of petty merchants and artisans among the Jews. This had its effect in an over-competition from the side of the Jews themselves.