Fehér György szerk.: A Magyar Mezőgazdasági Múzeum Közleményei 1992-1994 (Budapest, 1994)

KURUCZ GYÖRGY: Magyarország és az angol-osztrák kereskedelmi kapcsolatok a XVIII. század közepén

After the Turks had been driven out of Hungary, the Imperial Government of Vienna entered into several dynastic wars from the early 18th century onwards. The Austrians took loans on Hungarian copper in London, whereby the British Government became a chief financier of the Habsburgs. Hungarian wine was also sold in England in the early 18lh century. However, by the 1740s the Viennese government had realised that the influx of British goods into Hungary would ruin the chances for the products of Austria, Bohemia and Moravia in their major market, so Austria began to set up barriers in order to hinder the exportation of foreign goods to Hungary. Duties were raised on imported foreign goods, so the British Government decided to begin talks on trade relations. Several concessions were made on both sides during the lengthy negotiations which began in 1743. English clothes were allowed to be imported into Hungary at a lower duty and the English were really interested in importing Hungarian wine. However, the Austrian Government refused to sign the commercial treaty. Maria Theresa lost Silesia to Prussia and this meant that she was deprived of selling Silesian linen cloth in Britain and this would actually have been one of the greatest benefits for Austria. Hungary was adversely affected by the unsucessful outcome of the negatiotions, because she could not export wine to England. In addition, Maria Theresa's decree on import duties in 1754 sealed off the country from the outer world. Hungarians literally had to by Austrian and Czech clothes of poor quality. It seems apparent that the Austrian Government's tariff policy was influenced by foreign politics. The Austrians were willing to make some concessions as long as the dynastic interests of the House of Habsburg were supported by Britain. However, with London condoning Prussia's expansionism the Court of Vienna decided that in the interest of the Austrian and Czech industry they could not lift the import prohibitions nor lower the high import duties. For this reason, they even gave up the idea of signing a mutually favourable commercial treaty. Hungary inevitably lost the most. She was forced to be the market of Austrian industrial goods within the Habsburg Empire and could not even sell her only marketable commodity at the time in England.