The industrial and commercial development of the recent decades brought about changes in themselves unfavorable to the economic activities of the Jews. The improvements in communication and transportation through the extension of railroads, the building of roads, and the creation of credit facilities especially for the peasantry served partly to displace the Jews, whose economic position had been largely based upon the services they rendered in a relatively backward industrial and commercial civilization. The rise of a middle class among the Christian populations, chiefly engaged in industry, added an element of competition not before present. Not the least important in its effects was the increasing poverty of the peasantry, which seriously affected the Jews, as the principal buyers of their produce and sellers of finished products. Agricultural crises, so frequent in recent years in Eastern Europe, have often involved the Jews in financial ruin.[47] These purely economic factors served to weaken the position of the Jews and to cause an over-concentration in trade and industry, to their detriment. The gradual readjustment that would have followed naturally was, however, prevented by the existence of other forces, in the action of which we find the key to the situation faced by the Jews and the impelling forces of Jewish emigration. One of these was the economic antisemitism that rose partly from the competition of the middle classes of both populations. This competitive jealousy awakened racial and religious prejudices and found particularly in Galicia an active expression in the organization of economic boycotts, and in the co-operative agencies that were created to foster the growth of the Christian artisans and merchants. The sufferings of the agricultural population, again, were charged to the Jews, with whom the peasants were in close business relations and to whom they were deeply indebted. Preached from platform, press and pulpit, the doctrine of Jewish exploitation of the peasantry found a ready acceptance among all classes.