Trieste, the steam navigation company of Austrian Lloyd, and Trieste’s debates on free trade in the pre-March era

Abstract

The contribution begins by highlighting the development of the port of Trieste in the 1830s and the founding of Austrian Lloyd, and then focuses on the debate on Austrian customs policy, the national economic system of Friedrich List, and liberal economic ideas developed during the 1840s in the Austrian Lloyd Journal. The Journal’s orientation was particularly influenced by the director of Austrian Lloyd, Karl Ludwig von Bruck, and since 1844 also the editor Ernst von Schwarzer, as well as members of the Court Chamber advocating the liberalization of Austria’s customs policy. Trieste thus became the scene of the debate on Austria’s foreign trade policy, which could not yet reach full swing elsewhere in the monarchy. According to Journal’s editors and correspondents, the monarchy should be an independent and uniform economic area, with Trieste serving not only as the Austrian emporium, but also as a trade intermediary between Germany, central Europe, the Mediterranean region, and Asia.