Petrović, Nikola: Hajózás és gazdálkodás a Közép-Duna-Medencében a merkantilizmus korában (Vajdasági Tudományos és Művészeti Akadémia, Novi Sad - Történelmi Intézet, Beograd, 1982)
Summary
The shares went exceptionally well in Austria proper, and the next issue of Magyar Hirmondo already an announced that only 30 shares of the second (1000 forint) and 60 of the third order (500 forint), a total value of 60 000 out of the 800 000 forints originally floated. The stock left for Hungary was only 60 000 forints. The Danube-Tisa canal was, therefore being built chiefly with the capital coming from the western part of the Habsburg empire. In Buda, the sale of stock was in the hands of a broker with the German name Schickmayer. No bank which could handle an operation of this kind existed in Hungary of that time. A second article by the designers in the Magyar Hirmondo was dedicated to the problem of labour. They announced that from 1 May, 1793, 3000 workers would be needed on the site, and that these would be paid per cubic fathom of earth excavated; for stretches of 10 to 20 fathoms (sic) they would receive 34 kreuzers per cubic fathom. The designers had envisaged special bonuses for all those bringing a gang of 100 workers to the construction site: 15 forints for men from Backa, even more for those from other areas or from Hungary. After bringing a gang to the site, its leader or „boss", as he was called, would be given certain administrative and supervisory functions. In practice, these „bosses" became the instrument of exploitation of the labour force. All these measures, however, were of little help in securing the labour needed to complete the works in three years, as they had publically promised. Labour shortage would remain the principal problem throughout the course of the construction work. CHAPTER VI - THE KISS BROTHERS NEW PLANS With the Svistov peace treaty of 2 August, 1791, the wars between Austria and Turkey finally ended, after more than a century of bloodshed. That treaty was later to prove the prologue to a series of wars lasting a quarter of a century and known in history as the Napoleonic Wars. Work on the canal was to fall in the unrestful years of the first and second coalition wars against Napoleon, in which the Habsburg empire was to take part, with changeable fortune. The third division of Poland, in 1795, would bring the empire new lands — Cracow, Lublin, Chelm and Sandomierz, and some areas in the valleys of the Pilica, Vistula and Bug. Naturally, these turbulent events meant more difficulties both for the builders and the company. As regards the canal construction, in the course of the first two building seasons (1793 and 1794) there were no reports from the 492
