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313

(1914) [MARC] Author: Joseph Guinchard
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VII.

MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES.

In accordance with Swedish statistical praxis, all the branches of
industrial life which have not already been dealt with are here, inclusive of
handicrafts and domestic industries, brought together under the title of
manufacturing industries. Dairy-farming and the saw-mill industry, as
well as mining and the crude metal industries are thus excluded, as they are
treated of separately in chapters 6, 7 and 9 respectively.

As we have already had an opportunity of pointing out, mining was the
industry, which was the first to attain to any considerable degree of
development in Sweden. Apart from this branch, it must be allowed that the
manufacturing industries which are carried on at all extensively in Sweden are of
comparatively låte date.

In the Middle Ages and for some considerable time later, the industrial life of
Sweden may be said to have been exclusively domestic in character; hence, the
review given below of the history of handicrafts embraces at the same time
the story of the first beginnings of industry in the country in past times. First
in the sixteenth century can the beginning of the great industries, in the
modern sense of the word, be traced in Sweden; here, as in almost all other
fields, the leaders and promoters were the two Kings, Gustavus Yasa and
Charles IX. Gustavus Vasa (1523—60) was the great regenerator of the
country, first and foremost by re-establishing the independence of Sweden and
by securing for her a firm political organization; at the same time he was himself,
as a farmer, as a manufacturer and a man of business, the largest employer
in his kingdom. Sweden had already at that date attained a fairly high position
in shipbuilding and in the manufacture of arms. Charles IX (1599—1611) did
great service to industry in his time. In the compass of his duchy, many factories
were set up, such as for cloths, arms, and glass; there too, a very considerable
manufacture of tar was carried on, an article which at that time, and for long
afterwards, formed one of the chief articles of exports from Sweden.

The industrial history of the seventeenth century is also closely and primarily
connected with the names of the great statesmen of the time, viz. the two Kings
Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XI, and the famous Chancellor of the former
monarch — Axel Oxenstierna. The name of a private individual, is here met with
for the first time, that of Louis De Geer. The contributions of Gustavus Adolphus

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