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766
x. manufacturing industries of 8weden.
industrial education which he
imparted to this countrymen, for to
that is in great measure owing the
economic progress that has come
about in later times.
The reign of Gustavvs III
(1771/92) was of import for Swedish
industry up to a certain point, in sofar
that a more liberally-minded
legislation contributed its quota towards
placing industrial enterprises on a
sounder basis. The credit of this
improvement belongs principally to
the great financier J. Liljencrantz
(1730/1815). Generally speaking,
however, the condition of things from
an economic point of view was
distinctly unfavourable during thegreatei
part of the reign of Gustavus III.
With the dawn of the
«lne-teenth century came the vast
revolution in the industrial world
entailed by the discovery of steam as a
motive power. Sweden appropriated
the epoch-making discovery very
early, a circumstance due to the
efforts of A. N. Edelcrantz (1754/1821), a very versatile official, scientist, and
literary man. He went to England in 1804, returning with four steam-engines
of the best construction, on Watt’s system. To set up these engines he procured
the services of an English engineer, Samuel Owen (1774/1864), a man who
earned the gratitude of Sweden for work in many departments. The mechanical
workshops that Owen established (1809) at Kungsholmen, Stockholm, mark the first
beginning of machine industry in Sweden. That series of eminent foreigners
who have worked as pioneers to promote the industries of Sweden is headed by
De Geer and closed by Owen. It was Owen’s doing that Sweden came second only
to England among the nations in applying steam-power in the service of navigation.
Owen was, furthermore, very active in the causes of temperance and religious revival.
From that time forward, the history of Swedish industry becomes one of the
several special branches into which activity in this direction resolved itself;
many of the more important features of each will be briefly touched upon in the
following paragraphs. The most important events in the general history of
legislation on the subject during the nineteenth century are: the emancipation of industry
from antiquated restraints in the years 1846 and 1864, the French commercial treaty
of 1865 introducing the system of free trade, and the subsequent return to a
modified system of protective duties in the years 1888 and 1892; in the history
of the special branches during the same time, the rise of the sawmill industry
occupies the foremost place. Swedish industry still suffers very materially from
the difficulties concomitant with the absence of fossil fuel and with the failing
market for many of our manufactured wares; these circumstances have already
been discussed above.
The number of people taking their livelihood from industry in 1870 was
estimated at 613,000, i. e., 14-7 % of the whole population; the number in 1900 had
risen to 1,484,000, or 28’9 % of the whole population; the above figures embrace
all species of industry and handicrafts as also mining.
The statue of John Ericsson, in Stockholm.
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