The following work is _a reprint of three articles whichl wrote in 1872for the Leipzig Volksstaat. 2 Just at thattime the French milliards 3 came pouring down on Ger-many: public debts were paid of，fortresses and barracksbuilt，stocks of weaponsi and war materiel renewed; theavailable capital no less than the volume of money in cir-culation was suddenly enormously increased，and all thisjust at a time when Germany was entering the world arenanot only as a "united ermpire," but also as a great industrialcountry.These milliards gave its young large-scale industrya powerful im petus，and it was theyabove all that wereresponsible for the short period of prosperity，sorich inillusions, which followed on the war，and for the great crashwhich came immediately afterwards, in1873-74, by whichGermany proved itself io be an industrial country capableof holding its own on the world market.

The period in which a country with an old culture makessuch a transition from manufacture and small-scale produc-tion to large-scale industry,a transition which is,more-over，accelerated by such favourable circumstances,is atthe same time predominantly a period of “housing short-age." On the one hand,inasses of rural workers are sud-denly drawn into the big towns，which develop into indus-trial centres;on the other hand,the building arrangementof these old towns does not any longer conform to theconditions of the new large-scale industry and the corres-ponding traffic;streets are widened andnew ones cutthrough,and railways are run right across them. At thevery time when workers are streaming into the towns in masses，workers’dwellings are pulled down on alargescale.Hence the sudden housing shortage for the workersand for the small traders and small manufacturing busi-nesses，which depend for their custom on the workers.Intowns'which grew up from the very beginning as industrialcentres this housing shortage is as good as unknown; forinstance,Manchester,Leeds，Bradford，Barmen-Elberfeld.On the other hand, in London，Paris，Berlin,Vienna, theshortage took on acute forms at the time,and has，for themost part, continued to exist in a chronic form.